Text: Jennifer Güleryüz

For years, the online share in the food trade in this country was only 1%. Then COVID-19 came and online food sales have grown strongly across national borders. In China, for example, Carrefour's deliveries for the New Year, which took place a few weeks after the outbreak of the epidemic, increased by 600%. Chinese online retailer JD.com reported a 215% increase in online food sales in the first ten days of February alone. The situation in Europe is no different: In Italy or Spain, the number of e-food users doubled and in Germany, too, sales in online food retailing in April rose by 127% compared to last year.

According to a survey by Bitkom in April, 19% of consumers in this country have now switched to online food shopping. Detail Online assumes that up to 60% of customers will change their behaviour in the long term. The longer the pandemic lasts, the greater the effect of this new habit is likely to be, especially since online trading seems even more convenient than it already is in view of the distance and hygiene rules that will probably still apply in offline retailing for a long time to come.

The decisive factor will be how quickly the providers can increase their capacities and serve new customers. After all, initial entry is considered as the biggest hurdle and currently, many eager online shoppers are experiencing that retailers have reached their capacity limits and can no longer offer delivery slots. However, it is just a matter of time, until they will be able to expand their capacities to the required extent. While the provider picnic hires 50 new employees every week, some retailers are taking creative approaches: in the UK, for example, Aldi is testing food delivery in cooperation with Deliveroo. In Germany Netto is trying out a pick-up service and Rewe is opening hundreds of Click & Collect pop-up stations.

Not only food retailers, but also real estate players should adapt to these developments. Thus, supermarkets are in part becoming city storage areas, pick-up stations are needed and even drive-in counters like those of fast-food providers are likely to become the norm, especially in the city outskirts on busy streets.