One added wrinkle to frictionless shipping has been contactless delivery, where delivery workers will drop off groceries and other packages at the customer’s doorstep without direct in-person interaction. While this has already been the norm for most delivery packages, grocery and other food deliveries tended to be higher-touch interactions.

Bars and restaurants have been among the businesses most affected by the pandemic. That has given an opening to alcohol delivery services like Drizly, which is following the lead of direct-to-consumer (D2C) retailers and meeting customers where they live—literally.

Oddbox, a small UK firm that provides selections of locally grown fruit and vegetables too irregular to be sold in supermarkets, has seen requests for its weekly deliveries skyrocket. As of March 23, its website too was closed to new business, but it promised to notify by email when service was restored. Several restaurants now closed to in-person diners are moving online, too.

The rise of video streaming, spike in video game use, and remote-work-related internet access for services like Zoom have placed a palpable strain on internet networks that rely on content delivery networks (CDNs) to reach end users. Outages now last longer and are more complex to solve.

The pandemic led to large jumps in the number of people using an app or mobile website to order food (up from 36% to 56%), a product for pickup (up from 31% to 51%), and a local product for delivery (up from 31% to 49%). Mobile for Everyday Supplies. The pandemic boosted mcommerce for many categories, including business supplies, fitness, and games—and above all, CPG. Comscore, as cited in a J.P.

The fast-casual restaurant chain had numerous relationships with suppliers for milk and other fresh ingredients to make bread, but after the onset of the pandemic, no one was coming to its locations to purchase bread. Given all its inventory, Panera quickly pivoted to grocery delivery.

Canada Post reported that on Monday, April 20, it delivered more than 1.8 million parcels, a level matching the biggest delivery days during the Christmas season.

When the pizza chain Papa John’s noticed that gas stations and fast-food restaurants still maintained high foot traffic, it ran DOOH ads on top of ride-share vehicles in those areas to attract delivery workers. Burger King blurred the line between digital and OOH when it offered free Whoppers to customers who used Burger King billboards as their Zoom backgrounds.

But despite the rise of players such as TaskRabbit (home services), Postmates (courier) and Instacart (grocery delivery), the sharing economy is still dominated by transportation- and home-sharing. In 2020, nearly 95% of participants in the US sharing economy will use some sort of shared transportation, with the majority being Uber and Lyft customers.

These lockers can accommodate grocery deliveries as well.

Mastercard’s DoorDash and HelloFresh consumer rewards could entice customers to spend considering how popular the food delivery and meal-kit sectors have become during the pandemic. US digital restaurant marketplace sales climbed to $44.94 billion in 2020 and are expected to grow 22.3% year over year (YoY) in 2021, according to eMarketer forecasts from Insider Intelligence.

Usage of grocery delivery services increased again the following week—and so did reported problems as services continue to struggle with high volumes. CivicScience also found that 22% of adults reported using food delivery apps April 9-16, a figure that had held steady since the prior week.

However, even this was out of bounds for some, who were designated as required to shield at home and thus relied on digital ordering and home delivery. Return to Stores. There have been some small differences in attitudes to returning to physical stores.

In addition to see a boost in new customers in the past few months, FreshDirect also saw a surge of orders coming in from existing customers who moved away from the city. And as a result, the company expanded its delivery services in Westchester, Connecticut and Long Island to meet demand in these areas.

This is tempered by the expectation that as consumers transition out of the pandemic economy during H2 2021, disposable income will flow away from retail and back into key discretionary categories like travel, restaurants, and events.