America’s new favorite grocery store is a familiar name: Amazon.
The online retail giant jumped two places to take the top slot in the fourth-annual Dunnhumby Retailer Preference Index for grocery.
The consumer data science firm compiled its rankings based on a survey of 10,000 households.
Categories used to rank the grocers included:
- Price
- Quality
- Digital
- Operations
- Convenience
- Discounts
- Rewards and information
- Speed
Dunnhumby says Amazon took first place because it ranks 11th out of 56 retailers for price, second for speed and first for digital. In a press release, Grant Steadman, president of North America for Dunnhumby, says Amazon’s gains may have come in part due to its perceived safety during the coronavirus pandemic:
“Amazon accelerated past every other retailer on our Covid Momentum Metric and customer safety ratings, due to its speed to shop and virtual store format.”
The Covid Momentum Metric (whose name refers to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus) reflects how a grocer’s performance, based on the same categories above, affected its short-term financial success in 2020.
Based on the rankings, the top grocery chains of are:
- Amazon
- H-E-B
- Trader Joe’s
- Wegmans
- Aldi
- Market Basket
- Sam’s Club
- Costco
- Publix
- Target
- Fresh Thyme
- ShopRite
- Sprouts
- Walmart
The report also details the qualities that help specific grocery chains thrive. Dunnhumby says:
“Retailers who were well-positioned to deliver on Speed, Digital and Discounts, Rewards & Information tended to gain more market share, visit share and have higher year-over-year sales growth in 2020, even if they weren’t as strong on Price and/or Quality.”
Speed has become especially important to consumers in the wake of the pandemic. Consumers value a fast shopping experience because they dislike how new COVID-19 safety measures have slowed shopping, and they believe a speedy shopping experience keeps them safer from the threat of the virus.
If safe shopping is important to you, check out “The Safest Grocery Store to Shop During the Pandemic.”
Disclosure: The information you read here is always objective. However, we sometimes receive compensation when you click links within our stories.
