Walmart’s online pick up orders have also risen by an impressive 239% in the same time period

Online ordering of consumer packaged goods (CPGs) has grown in recent years. According to a recent study, online CPG sales jumped up by 35.4% in 2018, and within the growing number of CPG orders occuring online, nearly 50% are of the pickup and go variety. Seeing the rise in popularity of this service, Albertsons recently joined the growing list of grocery stores offering this service, under the moniker “Drive Up & Go.” To understand this growing e-commerce trend in online grocery pickup (OGP), Edison Trends took a deep dive into the data.

How has spending for online pickup orders changed in the past two years at Target and Walmart?

Figure 1: Chart shows the estimated quarterly spending trend for pickup orders for Walmart and Target from Q1 2017 to Q2 2019, according to Edison Trends. Data was scaled so that the highest quarterly spent was set to 100. This analysis is based on over 580,000 transactions.


Spending on pickup orders has been steadily growing for both Target and Walmart. The two follow similar seasonal trends — jumps in spend in Q4, followed by a dip in Q1. Despite the dips, however, from the beginning of 2017 to the end of Q2 2019, Target has seen 295% growth, and Walmart 239% growth. Interestingly, while Walmart’s best quarter was Q2 2019, Target’s was Q4 2018.

Key Takeaway

• Spend on online pickup orders tends to jump up during Q4, and drop in Q1

To purchase a copy of the entire Target vs. Walmart online grocery pickup sales report, please contact us at bizdev@edison.tech.

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*The data shown is based on a sample of anonymized and aggregated e-receipts from millions of consumers in the United States.