An estimated one out of every four dollars spent by Americans on online shopping this year was for curbside pickup, or in-store purchases. WalmartAccording to Insider Intelligence:

The big box giant drove 25.4% of all click-and-collect orders in 2021— the largest market share of any U.S. retailer, according to recent estimates by the market research firm formerly called eMarketer. This equates to $20.4 billion of sales.

According to data tracker, click-and-collect sales will increase by almost 20% to $120.15 trillion in 2022.

Suzy Davidkhanian (principal analyst for retail and electronic commerce at Insider Intelligence) said, “It is something people have become used to doing.” People started to embrace the change in their behavior during the pandemic.

Click and collect — also called buy online, pick up in store — is now a key sales driver for pandemic-era retailers to deliver a safe, fast way to buy goods and limit person-to-person interactions. Customers order grocery items, such as lightbulbs or sweatpants online, and can pick them up in the store’s parking lot.

The option offers financial advantages for retailers. Because they don’t have to deliver packages directly to customers, e-commerce is more lucrative than traditional sales. It also allows employees at stores to be doubled as order pickers.

Delivery is the dominant option of ecommerce in the U.S. however. According to market research, the click-and collect channel will drive approximately 11% in e-commerce sales next year for retailers.

Walmart’s click and collect strategy has transformed a massive store network into an effective weapon against the growing ecommerce empire. Amazon — not only to drive more sales but to improve margins and nudge online sales closer to profitability. Walmart owns 4,742 U.S. stores, which excludes its Sam’s Club membership store. Amazon’s footprint in the U.S. is only a small fraction, with its over 500 Whole Foods outlets.

Walmart was the largest retailer in the United States by revenues and began offering online grocery pickup well before the pandemic. The company tested online grocery pickup in a Denver location in 2013. marked its 1,000th location with the service in 2017. You can now pick it up curbside at over 3,700 locations.

Walmart’s click-and collect sales almost quadrupled during the past two year, going from an estimated $7.21billion in 2019 and $20.4billion in 2021. The market share of Walmart has increased from 20% to 20.6% in 2019 and is now at 20.4 billion. The U.S.-based ecommerce company has not turned a profit despite growing 79% during the fiscal year that ended on Jan. 31, 2021.

After Walmart, Home DepotInsider Intelligence predicts that click-and-collect will have the second highest market share in 2021. This represents 13.3% of all click-and collect channel sales. Target, Best BuyAnd Lowe’sThe top five are complete.

Home Depot introduced curbside pickup in all its stores nationwide during the first stages of the pandemic. Before that, online orders could be picked up in-store from either an employee or a pick locker.

For shoppers, buy online, pick up in store has become a popular way to get time-sensitive home improvement supplies — such as a small hardware item, one more strand of Christmas tree lights or another can of paint — when trying to finish a do-it-yourself project or a professional job, said company spokeswoman Margaret Smith.

Target added hundreds of groceries and other items to curbside pickup during the pandemicIt includes gallons and cartons of milk, eggs, and wine bottles. It attributes its Drive-Up curbside pick-up service for digital growth, which has experienced triple-digit percent growth. sales through Drive Up in multiple quarters.

Davidkhanian indicated that Walmart is expected to continue being the nation’s leader in click and collection. She said the big-box retailer is “leaps and bounds ahead of everybody else,” because of its early launch — and grocery sales, a purchase that lends itself to the shopping method due to their frequency and immediacy.

She said she expects Target to move up in the rankings — and potentially bump Home Depot from the No. The former’s emphasis on click-and-collect is why it ranked second.