One in five households are now placing online grocery orders as convenience and the pull of promotions has broadened its appeal with younger shoppers.
Data from Worldpanel by Numerator shared with The Grocer shows 20.6% of households placed online grocery orders in November, up from 19.0% in November 2024.
Online grocery share now stands at 12.9% [4 w/e 30 November 2025], up by 0.6 percentage points year on year.
The average online grocery spend fell from £90.57 to £85.89, but the increase in shoppers more than compensated for falling transaction values, said Worldpanel head of retail Sally Ball.
People who shopped online placed an average of 3.1 orders, up marginally on 3.0 year on year, the data shows.
“The drop in average basket size suggests shoppers are not relying only on online for their biggest shops,” said Ball. “In inflationary times you’d normally expect basket sizes to be up a little bit. The fall could also be because shoppers have more opportunities to manage their spend online as you can see the running total of your basket.”
Promotions make up a bigger proportion of online spend. Some 35.8% of online sales in the year to 30 November 2025 were from promoted items, compared with 29.3% for the total grocery market. Ball said this was partly because smaller retailers, which sell less on promotion, do not have an online offer, but that it could also reflect a tendency amongst online shoppers to buy promotional items in bulk.
Ambient bakery, household cleaning and lifestyle, biscuits and ambient savoury home cooking in particular stand out for volume growth, Ball added.
Online market share peaked during the pandemic in February 2021 when 22.8% of households turned to online grocery shopping during the third national lockdown, giving it a 15.1% market share.
Worldpanel said online sales rose by 8% in November and hit the second-highest-ever sales in a month since the pandemic high of February 2021, when online market share peaked at 15.1%. Online transactions accounted for 12.9% of grocery market share last month, compared with just 12.3% in the same period last year.
Figures released by Worldpanel last week showed grocery price inflation held at 4.7% in November while sales rose below inflation by 3.4%. The figures show 31.2% of spending was on promoted items, up from 30% last year.
Boosted by the online jump, Ocado reached a new record market share of 2.2% with sales increasing by 15.8% over the 12 weeks to 30 November.
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