Omnichannel retail sales for FMCG hits $1 trillion in U.S.

Through a new, exclusive agreement using Rakuten Intelligence’s consumer sourced panel — the largest e-commerce panel in the world, with 5.5 million consumers — Nielsen revealed data yesterday showing that total omnichannel sales for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) products alone have hit $1 trillion in 2018.

According to Nielsen and Rakuten Intelligence, online grocers saw over $21.6 billion in sales over the past three years, reaching 88% higher than the 2017 figure at nearly $11.9 billion. While that represents 26% of online FMCG sales, comparatively, it’s a splash in the pond versus in-store grocery store sales, which amassed $413 billion this year.

Additionally, according to the data, click-and-collect purchases now represent nearly half (48%) of all online grocery purchases.

E-commerce within the FMCG landscape represents 5% of total FMCG sales, but 40% of year-over-year dollar growth.  

Together with Rakuten Intelligence’s best-in-class representative online shopper panel of 5.5 million consumers, Nielsen will gain insight into today’s online shopper and visibility into nearly all merchants across all FMCG categories, channels and devices. Rakuten’s proprietary methodology captures and catalogs hard-to-measure buyer data collected directly from consumers. Using item-level purchase details, Rakuten Intelligence offers an in-depth examination of market volume and share, emerging trends and changes in buyer behavior across retailers.