Online Ordering Grows: Food delivery is growing, both in sales and in usage. Over the past five years, delivery sales have grown 20% and visits by 10%, according to The NPD Group. These increases were driven by online ordering, which now makes up over half of all delivery orders (phone orders still represent 49% of the total). In terms of individual meals, growth of dinner deliveries has been flat, while increases have occurred for meals that used to be less commonly delivered: breakfast and lunch.
Marketers Still Love Influencers: Over half of marketers use influencers to drive purchases, according to an Association of National Advertisers (ANA) survey, though there are higher-ranking objectives—brand awareness (86%), content creation and distribution (69%), and improving brand perception (56%). Three-fourths of marketers surveyed were using influencers, and 43% planned to increase spending over the next 12 months. Of respondents who weren't using influencers, 27% planned to do so. Both Facebook (86%) and Instagram (84%) were popular social platforms used for influencer marketing.
Walmart's Health: There's further evidence that Walmart might beat Amazon in the race to invest in healthcare. Last week, Walmart was said to be in talks with health insurance company Humana, and now there is talk that Walmart is looking to acquire PillPack, an online pharmacy startup. According to Drug Channels, in 2017 Walmart was the fourth-largest US pharmacy by total prescription revenues. Ecommerce has proven important to Walmart with all of its recent acquisitions, and PillPack would continue this trend.