Online is the new convenience. Mults have to keep up with the 10-minute delivery model

Oh dear. Hospitality isn’t even half open and Kantar data is already showing a sales slump in the supermarkets of 1.6%.

Convenience formats were worst hit, with Co-op and symbols down circa 20% over the 12-week period to 13 June, and many have reported home deliveries plummeting 50% month on month. Meanwhile, the big four mults were down 0.6% in sales versus last year. Although they have maintained share, they face two worrying factors.

Firstly, the discounters have leapt back into growth at 5.8%, with Aldi leading the charge at 6.6%. Perhaps more worrying is that although much of this data looks like a restoration of old shopping norms, it’s not. The share of online shopping remains almost double pre-Covid levels at 13.4%. Clearly online is the new convenience, and the net result is the mults have managed to shift sales from their most profitable channel – stores – into online, their least profitable.

Compounding this issue is that within online there will be a further tug of war for share. If anything, the necessary actions are more obvious although expensive. During the pandemic, online has been survival shopping. The truth is both the experience of booking slots and relentless substitutions have been appalling in normal standards, and forgiveness for this will soon run out in the UK’s homes.

Return to reliability and convenience is now key in online, but the goalposts are moving. Convenience is being redefined as 10-minute delivery. Only Tesco is well placed to keep up with the 10-minute brigade, if you see it as a holder of 500,000 Booker member locations rather than a 3,000-store chain.

Read more:

• Why Ocado’s Tim Steiner isn’t rattled by new ultrafast delivery players

• Asda becomes first supermarket to trial one-hour delivery across full range

• Getir, Weezy and Zapp: the rapid delivery players leaving Deliveroo in the dust

This all paints a picture of an online grocery marketplace with only discounters left in bricks and mortar. It’s plausible to think consumers will all stay conveniently at home and only venture out for the lure of super-low value in discount stores.

Of course, discounters win in the short and medium term, but many believe they must get into online. It’s a tough call. You don’t stay cheap by investing in online, and signs are that when the music stops Aldi and Lidl will get the only two chairs left in bricks and mortar. Perhaps that’s reward enough – unless Mere gets one of those chairs. If they do want to launch online, that will mean leapfrogging the current Ocado-style thinking straight into the costly 10-minute model.

I don’t believe we will see a a simple transition to online, though. Shoppers will not leave home to find the same old products they get delivered, and as long as own-label products mimic the brand leaders, they won’t leave home for that either.

They will however venture out for interaction, browsing and curiosity product ranges. They want something special. Waitrose, and dare I say suppliers, seem well placed for this. Truly innovative suppliers can drag those stay-at-home shoppers off their iPads back into store and be the hero for their major customers.