“Logging Off”: On Consumer Disadoption in Online Grocery Shopping

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Abstract
For the longest time, online grocery shopping has been lagging behind. With the spread of the Covid Pandemic, an uptick in grocery ecommerce has been observed worldwide. But is this truly the ‘new normal’? In general, the online channel is believed to reduce shopping effort and save precious time. The question is whether this also holds for grocery. Recent anecdotal evidence indicates that experiences with online grocery shopping have been less than ideal and that many, even after repeated trials, disadopt the online channel.
In this study, we document the prevalence of online grocery-channel disadoption, using data on more than 5,000 Dutch households over the period 2015-2020, covering more than 1.3 million household-weeks of purchases. Our results show that the vast majority of online shoppers abandon the channel relatively quickly. We find substantial heterogeneity in disadoption patterns and distinguish four segments that differ in their propensity to disadopt the channel, and also in the reasons why they abandon ship. We further find that the Covid pandemic does not seem to ‘jump start’ the online grocery channel: while it may tempt shoppers to try the channel, few are converted into more permanent users of online. Joint paper with Els Gijsbrechts.

Keywords: Online channel, grocery shopping, disadoption, Covid