When we first wrote about grocery ecommerce in Canada, click-and-collect and pickup lockers were early experiments. Today online grocery is an everyday channel. Canada's largest grocers run their own pickup and delivery programs, marketplaces like Instacart and Uber Eats sit alongside them, and shoppers move between the store, the app and delivery in the same week. For regional grocers and food and beverage brands, the question is no longer whether to sell online. It is how to do it well and do it profitably.
Grocery ecommerce is a margin game
Grocery has always run on thin margins, and online orders add real costs. Someone has to pick every item, keep chilled and frozen products at the right temperature, handle substitutions and get the order to the customer on time. That is why pickup remains popular with grocers. It avoids the most expensive part of the model, the last mile to the customer's door.
Before you invest, be clear on which fulfillment model fits your business, whether that is picking from stores, a dedicated fulfillment space, pickup only or delivery through a partner. Then design the experience around it, with sensible delivery windows, minimum order values and fees that protect your margin without frustrating shoppers.
Choose your channels on purpose
Marketplaces give you reach quickly, but you give up fees, pricing control and much of the customer relationship. Your own website and app cost more to build, but you own the data, the loyalty and the experience. Most growing grocers and food brands end up with a mix, using marketplaces for reach and their own channel for their best customers.
Food and beverage brands face a similar choice with their retail partners. Rather than a single approach, the strongest brands build a specific online plan with each major retailer, covering product content, promotions and retail media, while growing their own direct-to-consumer channel in parallel.
Product data is the foundation
Grocery catalogs are large and detailed. Every product needs accurate sizes and weights, ingredients, nutrition facts, allergens, dietary attributes and clear images, and in Canada that often means content in both English and French, especially if you sell into Quebec. Clean, structured product data powers search and filters, keeps substitutions accurate and builds trust with shoppers who have allergies or dietary needs.
It also matters for discovery. Shoppers are starting to use AI assistants to plan meals and build shopping lists, and those assistants rely on well-structured product information. We explain why in why AI agents need a composable commerce architecture.
Design for the weekly shop
Grocery is a habit, not a one-off purchase, so the experience should make repeat orders effortless.
- Fast reordering. Past orders, saved lists and favourites let shoppers rebuild a basket in minutes.
- Smart search. Shoppers search for "oat milk" or "gluten free bread", not SKUs. A search tool like Algolia handles synonyms, typos and natural language.
- Clear substitutions. Let shoppers choose their preferences up front and approve changes before the order arrives.
- Mobile first. A lot of online grocery shopping happens on a phone, often in a hurry. Keep the app and mobile site fast and simple.
- Connected loyalty. Points, offers and personalized deals should work the same way online and in store.
New models for food and beverage brands
Brands selling direct have more options than ever. Subscriptions suit coffee, snacks, supplements and pantry staples, and a tool like Recharge makes them easy to run on Shopify Plus. Bundles, limited releases and gift boxes lift order values. Many brands also sell wholesale to independent grocers, cafés and foodservice customers, and a dedicated B2B ordering portal with customer-specific pricing saves both sides time.
Connect the systems behind the store
Nothing frustrates a grocery shopper faster than paying for items that turn out to be out of stock. Accurate, near real-time inventory depends on connecting your storefront to your ERP, point of sale and warehouse systems. Integration platforms like Patchworks can link your store to systems such as NetSuite, and a composable approach lets you add or replace pieces as you grow. If your current platform makes this hard, it may be one of the signs it is time to replatform.
Test, learn and keep improving
Grocery ecommerce rewards steady improvement. Watch where shoppers drop off, test changes to delivery options and checkout, and use your data to tune assortment and promotions. A structured conversion rate optimization program helps you focus on the changes that move the numbers.
Whether you are a regional grocer building your own online channel or a food and beverage brand growing direct and wholesale sales, our ecommerce strategy and roadmapping work can help you choose the right model and plan the path. See our work or get in touch.
