Online shopping fruit and vegetables

US consumers shopping online are still not totally convinced by the concept of buying fresh items, including fruits and vegetables, online

That is the verdict of a survey of 1,100 US online shoppers by Door to Door Organics, which found that 23 per cent of respondents do not buy any fresh items, such as produce, dairy, meat and fish, when shopping online.

The survey, whose results were published by Consumer Goods Technology, also found that 57 per cent those who did opt to buy fresh produce and other fresh groceries online had been disappointed by quality or freshness at least once in the past year.

Respondents said that things that would make them feel more secure that they were buying quality fresh products online included knowing that the products had been recently picked or packaged (58 per cent), knowing the products were sourced from a local farm (51 per cent) and if they were purchasing from a specialty online grocer (25 per cent).

Generally, of the 1,100 respondents, 54 per cent said that they had increased the amount of shopping they did online in the past year by an average of 29 per cent.