Welcome to February’s edition!
The numbers don't lie: e-grocery is still in solid growth mode. Online food sales in the U.S. jumped 32% year-over-year, German delivery services are doubling market growth rates, and drone fleets are expanding faster than most people expected. This month, we're breaking down what's driving adoption, what to think of the current store picking renaissance, ****and which events we’ll attend.
And as always, you’ll find a quick look at what’s new in MotionTools in our latest release notes.
📢 The industry’s in growth mode
E-Grocery keeps climbing
The online grocery market crossed a new threshold in 2025. Germany's daily essentials orders grew 10%, with food surpassing €6 billion in net sales for the first time. U.S. e-grocery sales jumped 32% year-over-year in December 2025 to $12.7 billion, with online capturing 19% of total grocery spending.
The growth engines: New customers and new habits. Order frequency among monthly active users climbed 8% year-over-year in the U.S. Over half placed 3+ orders in December, with the 30-44 age group averaging 3.2 orders per month (up 17%). In Germany, 15% of surveyed consumers buy essentials online weekly or more, plus 21% shop multiple times a month.
The big players are scaling fast: Picnic grew 30%+ in Germany in 2025, serving over one million customers in 250+ cities. Austrian Alfies hit €33 million in revenue, while doubling its revenue in Switzerland year-over-year. Swiss Coop online supermarket grew its net revenue by 10.1%.
What's fueling adoption: Consumers cite convenience and home delivery (60%) and time savings (47%) as top benefits. Expanded regional coverage from Rewe and Picnic drives demand, while U.S. average order values rose nearly 11%, indicating shoppers consolidate more grocery spending online.
What’s next: Germany's online food market still has relatively low penetration and market share compared to saturated categories like electronics and fashion, meaning there's plenty of runway left. IFH expert Hansjürgen Heinick sees significant potential, especially among retiring baby boomers, many of whom will come to appreciate the convenience of doorstep delivery.
Drone Delivery is catching up
Walmart and Wing are expanding and are growing their partnership to 150 additional Walmart stores over the next year, aiming for more than 270 drone delivery locations by 2027, reaching over 40 million Americans.
The engagement numbers? Very promising. Wing's top 25% of customers are using the service three times per week, and deliveries arrive in under 30 minutes.
Zipline just closed $600 million at a $7.6 billion valuation and is expanding to Houston and Phoenix in early 2026. The company recently surpassed 2 million total deliveries, with U.S. deliveries growing 15% week-over-week for the past seven months.
Amazon is bringing Prime Air to the UK after halting drone delivery plans in Italy at the end of last year, citing the country's regulatory framework as a hindrance. Test flights with Amazon's MK30 drone began in Darlington, with full service expected to launch later this year. The drones are quieter than a delivery van, can carry up to five pounds, and deliver in under two hours.
📖 Worth a read: Store Picking Deep Dive
Last month, in an edition of his weekly e-grocery newsletter, Prof. Dr. Matthias Schu published an interesting piece about the renaissance of Store Picking, asking the question whether it is a strategic step backward or a smart move.
Spoiler: It's neither. It's a legitimate fulfillment strategy with expiration dates built in. Schu maps out the exact economics, identifies the volume thresholds where stores hit capacity walls, and explains why understanding your "tipping point" is the difference between scaling smartly and drowning in hidden costs.
Whether you're managing warehouse and logistics operations, advising retailers, or trying to understand where e-grocery is headed, this analysis provides data points you can actually use to form an opinion and act on it.
That’s why you should give it a full read here. LinkedIn won’t let us directly link to the section, so you have to scroll down a little to find it. It is written in German, but we highly recommend translating it into your preferred language.
📆 Events in February
As we shared in our last newsletter, there are many exciting logistics and e-commerce events this year, some of which we'll be attending. If you need a handy overview, you can find a downloadable event calendar here.
In February, we'll be at two conferences/fairs:
- E-Commerce Berlin Expo taking place 17.02→18.02 in Berlin
- EuroShop 2026 taking place 22.02→26.06 in Dusseldorf
We look forward to connecting with you personally at these events – feel free to reply to this email or reach out to Marian, if you'd like to meet up on site.
🦾 Shipping better technology for a world in Motion
Feature-Highlight: Pre-Delivery Checks
We're exploring additional and more sophisticated ways to support special delivery scenarios where a driver needs to collect information from a customer before completing a delivery. This could be a date of birth, a PIN code, or other details required to meet compliance or security requirements. The driver will be prompted to request this information and record the customer's response directly in the app.
Quick view of other updates:
- Stop Group management via Dashboard
- External ID support for custom stops
- External Place ID Management via Dashboard
- Changing driver’s organization
- Sessions & Security page
