Online Grocery Software: 10 Challenges, Solutions, & Providers

Nearly half of Americans have given online grocery shopping a try — and experts predict that this trend will continue to grow as more and more customers opt to browse grocery store aisles from the comfort of home.

Unfortunately, taking your grocery store online isn’t as simple as putting up a website and waiting for the orders to roll in. Without the right online grocery software, you might be stuck with added costs and operational complexity without any of the benefits. 

In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about taking your grocery store online, including:

• The common roadblocks small groceries face with online sales
• Why offering online shopping options is important in 2025
• Best practices for online sales and curbside pickup
• Top online grocery software providers

Let’s jump in.

Top Challenges of Bringing Your Grocery Store Online

Admittedly, there’s a reason many smaller grocery store owners haven’t brought their businesses online — it’s not always easy. If done haphazardly or with the wrong technology, it can cause more problems than it solves. 

Here are some of the major hurdles small grocery stores face when taking their stores online.

1. Separate POS and E-Commerce Systems

Sometimes, when brick-and-mortar businesses want to go online, they see it as an “add-on” service — so instead of updating their whole system, they end up using their existing point of sale (POS) system to run the store, then paying for a separate e-commerce platform to manage online sales. 

But while this approach might seem easier on the surface, it has major drawbacks. Here are some of the biggest issues that arise when using multiple systems to offer online sales:

1. If multiple systems don’t share inventory information, it can lead to inaccurate product information and stock levels, which can create headaches for customers and staff.
2. Having a standalone service to manage your online store creates a separate online entity, watering down your chance to show up higher in local search results. 
3. Managing your in-store and online sales on separate systems creates more work (and more chances to make mistakes).
4. Customers who shop both in store and online will find things like customer loyalty and purchase history separated, making for a clunky and disorienting shopping experience.

In other words, adding online shopping may boost your sales, but a bad implementation will eat up that additional revenue in the form of added labor.

A comprehensive POS system that can manage both in-store and online sales is essential for simplified fulfillment and smoother shopping experiences.

2. Added Costs for Cold Chain Delivery

Offering local delivery options in addition to in-store pickup is a great way to expand your customer base and drive sales — but with so many perishable items, not just any shipping service will do. 

Using trusted cold shipping partners is key to ensuring every order arrives fresh, but this can come with added costs that many grocers don’t factor into their online pricing. Some cold shipping providers also have specialized insurance requirements when shipping food or pharmaceuticals.  

Using the right technology can help you find reliable partners and do cost evaluations so you can build in shipping costs or pricing adjustments that are fair and protect your bottom line.

You also want a POS system that can handle separate price points for in-store and online for select items that are harder to pack.

Related Read: 5 Grocery Store Markup Strategies To Increase Profits

3. Complexity of Meeting Different Fulfillment Types

Adding online shipping also adds a whole new set of processes for picking orders, prepping shipments, and tracking stock levels. Unless all orders are filtering through a single system, it’s easy for details to fall through the cracks. 

Imagine prepping an order for pickup too early and a customer arriving to find wilted, lukewarm produce — or arriving to find the order isn’t ready yet. 

When grocery stores add more sales channels (e.g. online shop, InstaCart, and other third-party services, etc), they also need a solid game plan for implementing efficient processes to receive those orders, make substitutions, and prepare them at the right time.

4. Managing Substitutions and Customer Expectations 

Many of us who’ve shopped for groceries online have experienced this: Our requested can of tomato paste is out of stock, so the store has to make a substitution. When you know about it in advance, it’s not a big deal — but no one wants to be surprised with a surprise substitution after they get home. 

Having an inventory management system that syncs your in-store and online inventory goes a long way toward preventing these scenarios, but some substitutions are inevitable. 

A clear process for communicating with customers, inventory systems that offer up substitutions automatically, and transparent policies for substitutions and complaints help you avoid nasty surprises.

Additionally, to save your staff time and effort, you want a system that automatically notifies customers when:

• Their order is received
• Their order is prepared (and if there are any substitutions)
• Their order is ready for pickup or out for delivery

For successful online sales, the process should be as transparent as possible.

Why Your Small Business Needs Online Grocery Software

Despite the challenges, online grocery software is quickly becoming a must-have for small businesses. In just a one year period between June 2024 and 2025, online grocery sales grew by 28%.

And while online grocery sales are still a relatively small amount of the total revenue made by grocery stores, the numbers show that online delivery and in-store pickup options are here to stay. In fact, online sales are projected to outpace in-store sales in terms of growth.

Online sales may never become your biggest revenue source or the primary way you sell to customers, but having a solid foundation for smooth online sales has major benefits for your small grocery store.

1. Stay Competitive With Bigger Chains

Online grocery sales peaked during the pandemic, with major players like Kroger and Whole Foods investing heavily in online delivery and curbside pickup options. However, even though the pandemic passed, the shifts in customer attitudes to online shopping haven’t gone away.

Many of today’s customers expect businesses to offer some form of online option to shop and browse the store. Unfortunately, many small grocery stores haven’t jumped to modernize their online shopping experience, allowing larger corporate chains to dominate this area. 

Investing in a modern grocery e-commerce solution helps deliver the connected experiences customers want — and since many small grocers offer higher quality products compared to their bigger competitors, it allows you to offer something unique.

2. Boost Brand Visibility 

Building a solid online presence is a critical step in any effective marketing plan — even if your business is a small, neighborhood favorite, new customers will likely find you online. 

These days, a strong online presence isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s a must-have. A whopping 35% of all product searches start online, and 66% of customers will disregard a business that doesn’t have a strong online presence.

Moreover, a basic website may not be enough to draw in customers. Part of what makes online grocery options so convenient is that they provide a comprehensive list of available products, so customers don’t have to guess what’s in stock.

The more visible your store is online and the easier it is to buy from you, the more you can boost visibility (and sales)!

3. Enhance Your Marketing and Product Choice 

We’ve talked extensively about how in-store customer loyalty programs aren’t only a sales tool, but a useful way to understand customer behaviors and send out tailored offers.

An online grocery store offers the same advantage, providing more data points you can use to back up your instincts and make smarter stocking decisions. You can also combine in-store and online customer information to create even more detailed customer segments, which you can use to send personalized deals that actually interest them. 

The more ways you have to connect with your customers, the better. A seamless online grocery experience gives you more opportunities to understand your best shoppers. 

Launching an Online Grocery: Best Practices

Adding online grocery shopping options can be a challenge — it doesn’t have to be, though. The right technology and processes give you all the benefits of e-commerce without the stress. 

Here are some best practices to follow to make your journey to online grocery sales a smooth one:

1. Use a single system that consolidates sales, inventory, and customer data for all sales channels to ensure inventory levels and pricing are accurate, and that customers have a consistent shopping experience both in store and online. 
2. Ensure you have an easy way to oversee fulfillment, so you can prioritize and see the status of all open orders.
3. Train your employees on the order lifecycle — from receipt and fulfillment to pickup and packing.
4. Monitor both your in-store and online sales using the reporting and analytics tools on your POS system to uncover differences between your online and in-store customers and to optimize inventory levels and pricing.
5. Find an e-commerce solution that allows you to build a website without coding experience, so you can make updates to your website without IT support.

Adding online sales to your grocery store is a lot like adding a new department. It may take some training and adjustments to get it up and running, but with the right game plan and some patience, it’ll feel like a natural part of the store in no time.

Online Grocery Software: 3 Top Options

The right technology is a huge part of a successful online implementation. At a minimum, you need to use a POS system that has a built-in e-commerce solution or integrations to sync inventory with a separate e-commerce solution. 

This also gives you the flexibility to partner with third-party delivery services like Mercato and Instacart.

Here are our top four recommendations for online grocery software providers.

1. IT Retail — Best All-in-One Solution for Small Grocery Stores

IT Retail is our all-in-one solution built for both in-store and online grocery stores, international markets, and food co-ops. With native e-commerce functions and a variety of optional third-party integrations, IT Retail gives you flexible options for bringing your store online while modernizing your in-store operations.

Standout features:

• Standalone e-commerce functionality, plus integration support for third-party e-commerce platforms or third-party delivery services
• Unified in-store and online customer loyalty to allow customers to earn rewards no matter where they shop
• Intuitive reports and analytics to spot trends, monitor sales, and track promotion effectiveness
• Built-in marketing and communication tools to send tailored offers to customer segments
• Detailed inventory and supplier database to manage item descriptions, pricing, low stock alerts, and more

Pricing: We offer several flexible pricing options based on what hardware you need, store size, and other factors.

2. GrazeCart — Best for Farm Stores or Butchers That Sell Primarily Online

GrazeCart is an online grocery software solution designed to help small business owners sell fresh food online. Built by farmers, GrazeCart really excels in catch weight sales, with user-friendly ways to sell items like meat and cheese, along with subscription options that don’t require deposits. 

Standout features:

• Flexible options for pickup and delivery, allowing you to use your own delivery fleet or a nationwide carrier
• Robust inventory management to add detailed information for homemade or custom products
• An easy-to-use website builder that helps you craft an engaging online experience for your customers
• Subscription capabilities to generate repeat business and increase customer loyalty

Pricing: GrazeCart offers custom pricing.

3. InstaCart — A Popular Third-Party Service That Handles Orders for You

If you want to bring your store online but don’t have the staff or aren’t ready to manage a website yourself, InstaCart could be a great option for you. InstaCart uses your POS system’s inventory data to list your store in their popular grocery store directory, and sends out pickers to your business to fulfill orders.

Standout features:

• A built-in base of millions of active users to put your store in front of
• Simplified fulfillment — InstaCart handles the order and sends pickers to your store to prepare orders for you
• Modular e-commerce suite to add Instacart features to an existing website

Pricing: Contact InstaCart to get an overview of how they apply fees for their pickup orders.

4. Wave Grocery — An Extremely Sophisticated (but Standalone) Solution

Wave Grocery builds powerful, omnichannel e-commerce solutions specifically for grocery stores. Though they are a standalone solution, they offer extremely sophisticated and branded websites, mobile apps, and more — creating experiences that rival any big chain.

Standout features

• Flexible options to choose which channels you want, including websites, mobile apps, picker apps, loyalty apps, and more
• Smart product replacement features and location directories to speed up the fulfillment process
• Phone ordering options that still filter through your normal inventory and sales systems

Pricing: Wave Grocery starts at $600/month.

Launch Your Online Grocery Operations With IT Retail

Giving your customers convenient online shopping options is key to staying competitive and delivering the modern shopping experience customers expect. But when you’re taking your store online, don’t just rush forward with half-baked solutions that end up making your life harder. 

Set yourself up for success with IT Retail, our all-in-one solution for simplifying grocery store sales and operations. Backed by 30 years of collaboration with small grocery stores, we’ve created a flexible system that lets you go online, your way — whether it’s setting up a standalone site, partnering with a third-party service, or using an advanced e-commerce platform.

With IT Retail’s online grocery software, you’re not locked into just one option — you can make the incremental changes your small business needs to get online smoothly. 

To see just how affordable it is to switch to IT Retail, try our build and price tool today.