Grocery e-commerce climbs 15.5% while store sales slide 2.8%

Online food and beverage sales jumped 15.5% in the four weeks ended Oct. 4, while brick-and-mortar food and beverage sales fell 2.8% year over year. That gap, laid out Wednesday in Circana's latest U.S. CPG Demand Signals report, is the sharpest signal yet that grocery demand hasn't disappeared — it has moved channels.

Total sector sales slipped by under 1% during the period. So the digital gains aren't lifting the whole market. They're reallocating it, and conventional grocers are paying for that shift in comparable-store sales.

What are shoppers actually doing?

Circana's read is that customers have turned deliberate. They're reducing waste, cutting excess without sacrificing quality, and balancing price tiers against pack sizes and private label goods.

The evidence sits in the brand split. Store brand sales ticked up slightly during the reporting window. National brands sagged by about 1%. For distributors, that mix shift matters directly: private label volume typically carries different margin structures and different supplier relationships than national-brand volume moving through the same warehouse.

Category-level data tells the same cautionary story. Perishables — dairy, produce, meat, baked goods, seafood, deli and other refrigerated items — all declined year over year. Circana flagged produce as a key contributor to overall softness, noting the category ran into headwinds earlier this year amid the cyclospora crisis. Nonperishables, including baking supplies, beverages, shelf-stable meals and snacks, moved the other way and posted gains.

Shoppers are stocking shelves at home instead of buying fresh. That's a basket-composition change, not just a volume change.

How big is the digital shift?

Grocery e-commerce consultancy Brick Meets Click, working from its own measurement, found online grocery sales rose more than 20% in the third quarter of 2026 — a record share of total grocery spending.

Delivery did the heavy lifting. Delivery sales jumped more than 30% year over year and accounted for roughly three-quarters of the increase. Pickup rose in the mid-single digits.

Note the spread between the two datasets: Circana's 15.5% covers a four-week window through early October, while Brick Meets Click's 20%-plus covers the full quarter. Different panels, different periods, same direction. Both measured, not asserted — and both point the same way.

What does this mean for the big grocers?

The public company results confirm the squeeze. Kroger posted flat comparable-store sales in its latest quarter while digital sales grew 20%. Ahold Delhaize's U.S. business saw comps rise by less than 1%, against e-commerce growth of more than 14%. Albertsons recorded negative same-store sales yet still posted an 11% digital sales increase.

Read those pairs together and the pattern is unmistakable: every major conventional operator is watching digital grow at double-digit rates while the stores that anchor their economics barely hold the line, and conventional grocers now face the dilemma of using physical stores to differentiate themselves against e-commerce powerhouses like Amazon and Walmart.

Digital growth, of course, is not free growth. Fulfillment, last-mile delivery and picking labor all carry costs that compress the margin a store-trained operator expects on the same basket, and delivery — the fastest-growing segment — is typically the most expensive format to serve.

What comes next?

Circana's report lands as traditional supermarket operators report financial results shaped by the same pressures: cautious consumers, soft perishables, private label gaining ground. Expect retailers and their suppliers to keep chasing the online channel even as they lean on stores as the differentiator — and expect the share gap between digital and physical grocery to keep widening until delivery economics prove they can carry the growth profitably.