Amazon expands grocery business; Costco brings back samples at some locations
Fox Business Briefs: The first Amazon Fresh grocery store opening to invited shoppers in Woodland Hills, California; Costco bringing back its samples at some locations, however only dry and pre-packaged goods will be available for tasting.
Americans are grocery shopping less, but spending more.
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Customer spending at grocery stores jumped 6% from $310 to $330 per month on average; however, supermarket trips dropped nearly 11% compared to a year ago, according to data from digital marketing firm Catalina.
Customer spending at grocery stores jumped 6% from $310 to $330 per month. (iStock). The data shows that shoppers made more trips than average in March at the height of the pandemic to stock up on food and supplies with stay-at-home orders in place in many parts of the country. Those trips dropped in April and the number of trips to the grocery store dropped 10% from May through August, according to Catalina data. During the month of August, the findings show shoppers made 6.7 trips to the grocery store, down 11% from 7.5 trips per month in 2019. However, they’re spending an average of $49.28 per grocery haul this year, up from $41.58 in August, a 19% increase, the data shows. BACK TO SCHOOL BOOSTS ONLINE GROCERY SALES Consumers spent the most money on the following categories during the month of August: face masks and home health testing kits, which saw 367% year-over-year sales growth; liquid hand soap, up 224%; disinfectant cleaners, up 212%. Meats were also up 121%, according to the report. AMAZON COMING TO A SUBURB NEAR YOU: REPORT Less frequent trips to the grocery store could also be a result of more Americans shopping online as retailers beef up convenient online shopping experiences. Nearly 80% of Americans ordered groceries online during the coronavirus pandemic, Supermarket News recently reported. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS Source: Read Full Article