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Although not many consumers are currently shopping for groceries online, those who do are likely to be repeat customers.

According to “The 2016 Online Grocery Shopper,” a survey of more than 500 U.S. online consumers from Toronto-based grocery technology provider Unata, 8% of consumers bought groceries via Internet in 2015.

However, 93% of those shoppers said they are “likely” or “very likely” to buy groceries online in 2016.

Chain Store Age recently spoke with Vishwa Chandra, VP of retail accounts for Instacart, to get a better sense of the current and future state of online delivery.

What is driving growing consumer interest in online delivery?

Move over, Amazon, Target and Google – the fresh delivery space is getting a little more crowded.

FreshDirect, the New York-based online provider of custom and prepared grocery items and meals, is launching a mobile one-hour fresh item delivery service.

Ordering groceries online and digitizing the store rank among the top trends in grocery shopping for 2016, according to GroceryStories.com.

GroceryStories identified the following full list of top grocery trends for 2016:

Ordering groceries online and digitizing the store rank among the top trends in grocery shopping for 2016, according to GroceryStories.com.
 
GroceryStories identified the following full list of top grocery trends for 2016:

(The following is an excerpt from the new book, Extraordinary Experiences: What Great Retail and Restaurant Brands Do, by Denise Lee Yohn.)

Scott McClelland seems an unlikely candidate for his picture to appear under a "Why Is This Man Smiling?" headline. As spokesperson and president of the Houston food/drug division of Texas-based grocery store chain H-E-B, McClelland has plenty of reasons to be worried.

Shoppers all across the country who long for a taste of salsa from San Antonio or tortilla chips from Dallas will love the latest news from Texas-based grocery chain H-E-B.

Grocery e-commerce has thus far mostly been the province of large vertical players like Kroger, mass merchandisers like Target and Wal-Mart, and online platforms like Amazon and Instacart.

However, a successful regional grocer is throwing its Stetson in the grocery e-commerce ring. Texas-based H-E-B, one of the nation's largest regional grocery retailers with more than 370 stores in Texas and Mexico, is making 50,000 food, drugstore and general merchandise products available to purchase and ship at its corporate site.