“Grocers Gear Up Online”

              Stephen Wilmot, in an article published on December 21, 2017 in the Wall Street Journal, covered a topic that has been widely discussed over the past several years. Wilmot recaps several companies’ investments and innovations in new technologies in terms of grocery shopping. While several companies across the market are making large investments to develop online grocery shopping methods, Wilmot once again points out what has been said many times before, the market is simply not profitable.

              “In the U.S. the share of groceries sold on-line is just 1.5%, much lower than e-commerce’s 8% share of retail sales overall”. Despite many companies’ wish to develop a lucrative online shopping experience, customers simply aren’t spending the money to shop for groceries online. The article discusses Albertsons recent signed deal with Instacart, an online grocery delivery service; Albertsons, like so many other companies is trying to stay on top of the market by partnering with a service to hopefully efficiently deliver groceries to its consumers. However, as Wilmot correctly asserts at the end of the article, “whether humans or robots do the picking up, more grocery tech tie-ups are inevitable”.