Since the pandemic swept the globe, tens of millions of US consumers became online grocery buyers for the first time. Suddenly, parents all over the country were calling their children for a walkthrough of how BOPIS works. 

The numbers are impressive. Online grocery sales grew 54.0% in 2020 to reach $95.82 billion. That catapulted it to a 12.0% share of total US ecommerce sales and 7.4% of all grocery sales. Moreover, by 2023, online grocery sales will make up 11.2% of total US grocery sales. So who is cashing in on the shift to online grocery shopping? You guessed it, Amazon. 

Due to its Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods subsidiaries, Amazon is in good standing to snatch up a significant part of the grocery market share. The tech giant’s U.S. marketplace sales will rise 16.5% to $220.4B, with a B, making up 60% of its total sales.

E-marketer predicts that online grocery sales will surpass $100B, and it’s safe to say that the tech giant will make up a good chunk of those sales. But, Emarketer points out that growth will most likely slow as the vaccine rollout allows shoppers to more comfortably return to stores. So we’ll keep an eye out. 

As direct-to-consumer brands continue to thrive in the current climate, Harry’s is slowly but surely proving to be one of the most successful semi-recent DTC launches that we’ve seen thus far. 

Harry’s recently announced that it has raised $155 million from a Series E funding round led by Bain Capital and Macquarie Capital. The brand is now valued at $1.7 billion. The specialty shaving company will use the capital to add more brands to its portfolio, which currently consists of Harry’s, haircare brand Headquarters, women’s body care brand Flamingo, and their pet-centered brand called Cat Person. 

Even as the pandemic played out and we were shaving substantially less, (because who actually had time to shave between Netflix benders?),  Harry’s product diversification drove up 2020 sales by 25% to $370 million for the year. Along with a plethora of new body care products, the company heavily expanded their physical store footprint in Target especially. The giant retailer even has dedicated fancy shelves for Harry’s– that’s when you know you’ve made it. 

This is Part 5 of our series on the discovery process for web projects. Discovery, in the simplest of terms, is the process that consulting firms, agencies, and web development shops use to gain knowledge about an upcoming project. Once again we have Melissa Curra, Director of Strategy at SUMO Heavy. 

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