Survey: Walmart, DoorDash lead in food delivery popularity

Consumers have clear-cut preferences about what platforms they like to use for online grocery and meal delivery.

A new survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers by online deal platform CouponFollow indicates a leading 34% use the Walmart grocery delivery service for online grocery orders. Following (more than one response was permitted) were Instacart (32%), Amazon Prime grocery delivery (17%), Target grocery delivery (17%), Fresh Direct (9%), Fry Delivery (9%), and Google Shopping (8%).

Meanwhile, responses indicated a much more dominant number one choice for preferred meal delivery app. DoorDash led with selection by 70% of respondents, far ahead of number two Grubhub (49%). Other popular fast-food delivery apps include Uber Eats (45%), Postmates (21%), and Delivery.com (10%).

The top method respondents use for meals at home is still in-person grocery shopping (85%), followed by meal delivery apps such as DoorDash and Uber Eats (27%). More than one in five (22%) pick up online grocery orders curbside, and almost one in four (18%) use online grocery delivery services such as Amazon Fresh. Ready-to-cook boxed meal subscription services such as Blue Apron and ready-made boxed meal subscription services such as Freshly were less popular (9% and 6% usage rates, respectively).

Examining some demographic variations in results, Couponfollow found that while 24% of respondents living in an urban area had been using grocery delivery services, only 7% of respondents in rural areas were leveraging these services.

Differences in preferences were also reflected among age variations. Younger respondents, who tend to congregate in urban, rather than rural, areas - were also the most likely to use delivery services for their food. Respondents aged 18 through 29 were the most likely to use boxed meal subscriptions, both ready to cook (17.1%) and ready-made (8.9%). 

Looking forward, the survey found that almost all respondents who currently perform in-person grocery shopping (97%), plan to continue to do for the remainder of 2021. Eight in 10 respondents who currently order from meal delivery apps plan to continue to do for the remainder of 2021. A similar 79% of respondents who pick up online grocery orders curbside will continue through the end of the year.

Smaller percentages of respondents plan to continue performing food shopping activities such as online grocery delivery (73%), ready-to-cook boxed meal subscriptions (69%), and ready-made boxed meal subscriptions (58%) through the rest of the year.

According to the latest Brick Meets Click/Mercatus Grocery Shopping Survey, ship-to-home grocery sales in July 2021 declined to $1.4 billion while the combined pickup/delivery segment remained steady at $5.3 billion for the third straight month.

Other interesting findings include:

• A leading 27% of respondents spend $301 or more on groceries every month. A leading 50% of respondents spending less than $100 on takeout food each month. Conversely, only 11% of respondents spend less than $100 on groceries per month, while only 5% spend $301 or more monthly on takeout food.
• Respondents 44 and younger were most likely to continue using meal delivery apps.
• Respondents 30-44 were most likely to continue picking up online grocery orders curbside or ordering online grocery delivery.