Amazon Dethrones Trader Joe's as No. 1 Grocery Store in America

About a year ago, a new virus was discovered, and we had no idea how it can impact us. Many thought it was just another virus. But after several months, the gravity of our situation was drastically felt. With the government's mandate to stay at home, most establishments resort to using online platforms such as Amazon to keep business going.

Consumers were quick to change the way they purchased and opted for online shopping rather than going physically in stores. As a result, a surge in online shopping transactions was seen everywhere across the country. Among the big players in this field is Amazon, which is currently hailed as the most popular grocery store in the country.

According to Business Insider, Amazon was able to beat all-time favorites like H-E-B and Trader Joe's as the go-to grocery stores based on the recent Dunnhumby Retailer Preference Index. Speed, price, and safety were some of the criteria for this ranking. It was the fourth year the Dunnhumby conducted the annual Retailer Preference Index.

As per Food and Wine, it was Trader's Joe that took the top spot in 2018 and 2019. However, the following year, Texas-based H-E-B overtook and claimed first place. Surprisingly, this year, a newcomer snagged the top spot from the go-to consumer favorites, and the top spot was given to Amazon.

Why Amazon?

Dunnhumby's president of North America, Grant Steadman, acknowledged that 2020 was a challenging year for everyone and that the pandemic has led to record highs and lows in economic metrics.

He added that as a result, they decided to look into 2020 through a different lens than they've viewed on the grocery industry in previous years.

He explained that Amazon took the first place because they accelerated past other retailers on their COVID Momentum Metric and customer safety ratings. All of which is due to speed to shop and virtual store format.

He further detailed that over 10,000 U.S. households were surveyed in order to compile the ranking of 56 retailers. They looked into seven consumer preference drivers, which include operations, price, quality, digital, convenience, discounts, rewards, and information, and speed.

As a result, Amazon came in first in the digital category that refers to the ease of use. Meanwhile, it came in second in speed, which is all about the time needed to complete the shopping experience. Additionally, Amazon also did well when it comes to price competitiveness. All these resulted in them snagging the top rank.

Meanwhile, the top 10 list include Wegmans, which won the top spot for quality; Aldi, which came in first in the price category; Market Basket, Sam's Club, and Costco led the price consistency and stock availability category; and Publix and Target that joined the top 10 circle for the first time.

Nonetheless, according to Steadman, despite all the changes they had to consider, everything will probably swing back to normalcy once the pandemic subsides. However, for now, quality and price remain the critical factor for the grocery industry. With this anticipation, we will soon find out the post-pandemic effects on our behavior as consumers.