While it is still in its infancy, Finland's online grocery market grew steadily during the ongoing Covid crisis, according to the Finnish Commerce Federation.

To date, the number of people who regularly shopped for groceries online has more than doubled since the start of 2020, shortly before Finland and the world began dealing with coronavirus.

The federation estimated that e-commerce now accounts for around three percent of the country's overall grocery trade, anticipating the proportion will grow to five percent in four years.

Households with children are particularly keen online grocery shoppers, according to the group, mostly to save the time and effort needed to go back and forth to brick and mortar supermarkets.

On the other hand, the main reason that people over the age of 65 ordered groceries online was to avoid contact with others during the epidemic.

There are many reasons behind consumers' online shopping decisions, according to the federation. Among other things, their choices are influenced by price, previous shopping experiences as well as being regular customers. But there is also an element of experimentation among consumers, according to the group's chief economist Jaana Kurjenoja.

She said that online shoppers are more likely than their traditional brick-and-mortar counterparts to seek out market challengers, a trend that will continue to shape the e-commerce market in coming years.

The most popular online grocery retailers in the country this year were run by the S-Group and K-Group giants as well as fiksuruoka.fi, which sells rescued food items at a discount.