The delivery market is coming down from its pandemic highs

It’s choppy waters ahead for delivery startups

During the pandemic, delivery startups — whether focused on groceries, essentials or takeout — became the darling children of venture capital firms. Early on, mandates and closures put up barriers to physical shopping, but as time went on, customers became more used to the idea of shopping online for everything from toilet paper to rotisserie chicken. In a 2021 survey from Coresight Research, nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers — 60% — said that they were buying groceries online, up from 36.8% in 2019.