New data on e-commerce grocery sales released Thursday by MyWebGrocer highlighted category-specific opportunities for marketers to boost sales, and highlighted areas in which online sales are outpacing overall growth.
According to MyWebGrocer, the data "provides comprehensive insights into how consumers are actually shopping for groceries today, not just how they are forecasted to spend. While each individual index highlights unique shopping habits in specific categories, the overarching trend of the 
The company, based in Winooski, Vt., shared data from the beverage, frozen, dairy, and sweets and snacks categories. Key findings follow:
● Beverages are included in 79% of online grocery orders and is the third behind produce and dairy as the most frequently purchased item online. Online buyers of beer, wine and coffee tend to make bigger overall purchases with baskets of coffee buyers 26% larger than average.
● While total market sales of frozen foods climbed only 0.8% in 2015, online sales soared by 18%, MyWebGrocer said. Sales of frozen breakfasts online outpaced overall sales growth in the category by 17% to 2.2%, the company added, but was an item in the online carts of just 29% of shoppers, highlighting further opportunity.
● Online dairy sales are growing faster than in the overall dairy market, and were included in 93% of all online baskets.
● Sweets and snacks are included in 77% of online grocery orders, and grew by 15% in 2015. Growth in sales for products such as vegetable snacks (24%) and meat snacks (23%) also indicate that consumers are expanding the variety of snacks they purchase online.
“This data proves that there is significant opportunity for CPG manufacturers with brands in these categories to engage shoppers online,” Michelle Cote, VP of Data and Insights at MyWebGrocer said in a statement. “The spending patterns are evident and the digital medium enables rich engagement and storytelling opportunities. Now is the time for brands to start ramping up their digital advertising investments.”