Data: Deliveroo buyout follows spike in rapid grocery delivery

While some industry observers thought that the rise of rapid grocery delivery would be a flash in the pan reversing as life moved back to normal post-pandemic, the practice has instead become a significant (albeit still small) part of the retail ecommerce environment.

Now for every £100 spent online on fast-moving consumers goods (FMCG), £7.20 is via rapid delivery applications.

That has more than doubled from £3.40 since 2022, according to figures supplied by consumer intelligence firm NIQ.

Around 70% of that £7.20 is on aggregators like Deliveroo, 18% on retailer-owned rapid delivery apps like Tesco’s Whoosh or Sainsbury’s Chop Chop, with the remainder towards quick-commerce-only retailers like Zapp.

“The fact you’re seeing penetration increasing suggests that it is becoming more embedded in the way consumers shop. And obviously we are seeing expansion into more locations across the country, so it’s also becoming more accessible to consumers,” says Caroline Cartwright, UK ecommerce sales director at NIQ.

Something that may be factoring into DoorDash’s calculations is the UK’s fast embrace of rapid delivery compared to its European peers. The 7.2% market share of ecommerce is way ahead of other European markets, with the closest behind being Spain at 4.8% then Germany at 2.8%.

This mirrors the UK’s ready adoption of other new shopping tools like buy-now, pay-later. When you consider that ecommerce penetration is already a lot higher in the UK than it is in other European markets, those figures become even more impressive.

Deliveroo comes with big room for growth in its grocery business. Its latest results showed that grocery represented 16% of gross transaction value in 2024, but 70% of app users were yet to place a grocery order.

Supermarket sweep

When the pandemic began, the rise in quick commerce was largely driven by private equity-funded international start-ups like Getir and Gorillas, and UK-based companies such as Zapp, GoPuff and Weezy.

At the time, many of the established grocers viewed the exploding quick commerce market with at best suspicion and, at worst, slight contempt. Ocado boss Tim Steiner called it a “tiny market” in 2021 and dismissed the start-ups flooding it as “a fad”.

While Steiner was right in one sense, given that many of the start-ups from Covid-19 have either been sold off or folded, he was wrong in another way.

The rapid delivery market is still going strong—but it’s now being driven as much by the mainline grocers as by anything else.

Convenience specialist Co-op has put quick commerce at the centre of its ecommerce strategy, and it’s paying dividends.

Co-op food boss Matt Hood said that in its most recent full financial year, quick commerce growth jumped 46% to more than £460m.

“That helped make us the UK’s most shopped supermarket,” he added. “With an average of 2.2 million shoppers visiting us every day. Which equates to around 800 million shopping visits every single year”.

Tesco’s Whoosh has also been a significant driver of growth for the grocery giant. Boss Ken Murphy said the service has been a “real success story for us” since its launch in May 2021.

“Whoosh has doubled in size over the last 12 months regarding its sales impact, which is fantastic,” he added. “What we’re seeing in our larger stores, after we’ve extended the offer from 3,000 products to nearly 15,000, is that we’re getting bigger basket sizes. I think it’s a very valuable service for our customers”.

Changing customer behaviours

Shoppers now often expect to get the groceries they order in a few days max. Something that was not the case pre-pandemic. 

NIQ numbers show that in 2020, same day delivery made up 4% of the FMCG ecommerce market. That share has now more than tripled to reach 15%. Two thirds of online FMCG orders now come within two days or less.

“Consumers do have more of a demand now for convenience and this is very much reflected in faster delivery timings,” says Cartwright.

The flexibility of rapid delivery means shoppers are also increasingly aware that they do not have to leave their home for the essentials. 

Bread is the number one category bought through rapid delivery apps, ranking much higher than it does in typical online grocery delivery. Tobacco overindexes too, as do sweet treats like chocolate.

Orders made between midnight and 7am make up a surprisingly high share (15.4%) of FMCG orders through apps like Deliveroo, UberEats and JustEat. This largely reflects an app like that being one of the few options shoppers have at that time of night.

Cartwright adds that England’s appearance in the final of Euro 2024 coincided with a big spike in rapid delivery orders.

This perhaps helps explain some of the non-grocery retailers that are experimenting with rapid delivery.

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