Online grocery sales to double in next five years

Online grocery sales are to double over the next five years and one in ten shoppers will no longer visit a bricks-and-mortar supermarket, according to research from IGD.

The consultancy forecasts that sales will hit£5 billion, although this will still be less than 8 per cent of the£156 billion UK market.

The largest online grocer is Tesco, which sells£1.23 billion online – about three and a half times the value of sales achieved five years ago.

Major supermarket operators commented that the IGD figure was likely to be exceeded and that sales are growing by about 30 per cent a year.