Happy Nice Mall

The traditional view was that the pandemic would trigger a pervasive and lasting change in American habits from analog to digital. But what about the most basic habit, grocery shopping?

Americans spend more on food than just about anything else, and how we buy food is considered a finger in the wind for assessing the future of our shopping habits. The direction is currently unknown.

I’m researching data on online grocery shopping in the US and I’ll be humble and say I don’t have a clear picture.

Americans are certainly buying a lot more food online than we are in 2019, but in some key categories like fresh and frozen foods, online sales growth is much lower more than before the virus began to spread widely in the US In some recent months, online grocery sales fell or barely moved from the previous year.

It is inevitable that digital sales will continue to grow as a share of US spending, including groceries. But digital transformation is often not a straight hike up a mountain, but rather an uneven climb up, down, and sideways. And grocery buying is on a particularly rough trajectory.

My reluctant analysis is that Americans aren’t upside down for buying bananas online, but we don’t dismiss it either.

with the numbers shown e-commerce lost ground to face-to-face shopping last year, The blurry picture of online markets shows that human behavior can be too complex for simple explanations.

Here’s how things look: Before 2020, Americans weren’t all that tempted to have food delivered to our doorstep. By choice or necessity, nearly all U.S. grocery shopping took place in stores.

The amount of online grocery shopping has increased to some extent around 7 with 15 percent maybe 3 or 4 percent of total sales in 2019. (Analysts have told me that roughly $1 trillion of annual U.S. grocery sales data should be taken with a grain of salt.)

Grocery delivery to our door is still relatively bad, but ordering food online for in-store pickup has taken hold during the pandemic and continues. Maybe.

However, there has been some setbacks to online ordering, and the vast majority of Americans are still old-fashioned shopping for groceries. It is difficult to predict whether the habit of shopping online will continue and how much it will cost.

A report Research by Forrester and IRI found that online growth in many categories of products purchased from supermarkets was lower than in January 2020. Online grocery sales have been growing unevenly lately, according to shopping surveys closely watched by research firm Bricks Meets Clicks.

It’s no surprise that online grocery sales can’t continue to grow as quickly in 2020 as they did when panicked shopping online. But while sales are still relatively low, the lack of numbers isn’t a sign of passionate digital love. was rising rapidly or steadily. (Rising costs for everything also make it difficult to compare shopping in 2022 with shopping in 2019.)

Even experts cannot say with confidence how quickly Americans will adopt the habit of online shopping or how much of our shopping may become virtual. “The numbers are too small to draw any lasting conclusions,” he said. Jason Goldbergchief commercial strategy officer at advertising giant Publicis.

In conversations with industry leaders, he said that major supermarket chains are betting that online grocery shopping will become a bigger part of our lives, but everyone is constantly second-guessing their own beliefs.

At least for now, supermarkets like Walmart, Target, and Kroger are investing in expanding options for people to pick up groceries they buy online. Americans have had way to go for digital grocery shopping.

Big supermarkets too redesigning stores invested in automated mini-warehouses, some more like Amazon, to make it easier for their staff to put together online orders.

Goldberg said grocery stores don’t want to be left behind as more of our shopping is done online. But they’re also worried, in part because selling online increases costs in an industry that is already struggling with profits.

Even a relatively small amount of online grocery shopping has now profoundly changed the experience of many shoppers. Some of the millions of Americans working in grocery stores and worried sellers.

Still, the challenge of analyzing our online marketplace and our future requires humility about the resilience of our coronavirus adaptations. When people make bold statements about what will happen in shopping, work, or the economy, try to remember that no one knows for sure.

Maybe you’re not sure how you want to shop for food in your own life. I look forward to hearing about your experiences at ontech@nytimes.com. Please write “Grocery” in the subject line.

How are hidden charges determined in delivery apps?

ADo you deliver restaurant food or groceries? Brian X ChenThe New York Times’ consumer technology columnist suggests ways to assess the true cost of your order, sometimes including fees that aren’t explicitly disclosed.

(Please note that billing for delivery apps may vary depending on where you live. Some US cities require delivery apps to specify their charges in detail.)

Ever wonder why it costs $50 to get a pepperoni pizza delivered via DoorDash or why that Instacart bill seems astronomically high? This is not just because inflation has increased food prices. Online delivery apps and restaurants that rely on them also find ways to add non-transparent fees to your order, too.

Consider an order I placed for a delivery of two Subway sandwiches. in a study I did for past columnUber Eats charged me $25.25, including a meal fee, service fee, delivery fee, and surcharge for a small order—a 91 percent increase over purchasing these sandwiches in person.

In a separate experiment, I found that some restaurants charge more for certain menu items when you order through delivery apps. The Family Feast value meal at Panda Express costs $39 at the restaurant, but the same item costs $47.10 if you ordered it through DoorDash, Grubhub, or Uber Eats. This was before paying additional service fees. Restaurants sometimes inflate their menu prices to cover the commissions they pay on delivery apps.

The next time you decide whether to order delivery or not, be aware of how much it may cost you. Take a close look at the bill and compare the cost of the items in the app with the prices of those menu items on a restaurant’s website or grocery store.

The real cost of using a delivery app may force you to use the phone to order takeout and pick up dinner yourself, or you may decide the delivery is worth it. Either way, you’ll be better informed.

Before you go …

• The battle is proven ground for face scanning technology: My Colleague Kashmir Hill reports Promising to identify people from images of their faces, this software from Clearview AI was used to identify soldiers who died in the war in Ukraine to inform their families. But he also notes that facial recognition companies can take advantage of a crisis as a sales opportunity, and mistakes in identifying people can have deadly consequences in a war zone.

• Problems for the eyeball scanning company. It sounds weird, but a start-up called Worldcoin has promised to give people in low-income countries cryptocurrencies and scan their eyes to make sure no one gets multiple payments. BuzzFeed News found that some people were very angry about it. they had coupons for a currency that didn’t exist yet.

• How does e-commerce work on remote islands in the Pacific Ocean? in French Polynesia, locals made their own online shopping service Rest of World reports based on planes, cargo ships, scooters and the Facebook Messenger app.

hug this

please meet The squirrel who loves everything bagel.

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else you would like us to discover. You can contact us at ontech@nytimes.com.

If you have not yet received this newsletter in your inbox, please register here. You can also read History in technology columns.