20% of delivery services come from retail orders, with almost half from convenience

With DoorDash having just announced it is to purchase Deliveroo for £2.9bn - undoubtedly making for a huge change in the delivery sector as a whole - new research from analysts the TWC Group, commissioned on 17 April, has established that 20% of UK adults have placed at least one order with one of the three main aggregators (Just Eat, Deliveroo, Uber Eats) in just the previous week of asking.

Perhaps more usually associated with the hospitality sector – hot food, essentially – TWC’s research, which polled 2,000 people over two weeks, found that almost 20% of transactions actually came from retail (grocery transactions).

But drilling down into the figures, it appears there’s much for the convenience sector to consider as well. Increasingly, developments relating to delivery platforms should be watched closely as the service plays a larger and larger role in our lives - and for smaller stores as well as the larger chains.

While you might typically associate delivery with national or even global chains, it found that almost half of the transactions were placed with independent outlets. What’s more, the average order value was nearly £30 (£29.65).

Therefore, there are huge opportunities for businesses working with the delivery providers to influence shoppers’ buying habits. The news of the Deliveroo buy-out follows on from the announcements earlier this year that Inpost had acquired Yodel, as well as taking on Vinted deliveries and that Co-op would be partnering with Uber Eats for three years.