Technology Development in Online Grocery Shopping-From Shopping Services to Virtual Reality, Metaverse, and Smart Devices: A Review.

This paper presents a review of the technologies and services associated with online grocery shopping. The progress in the field of online grocery shopping has been very rapid in recent years. Hence, there was a need to systematize knowledge about the latest various solutions used in this topic. The authors searched the internet, focusing on websites of different supermarkets, shops, and other services that offer online shopping, as well as reviewed scientific papers. Based on the collected material, the authors created four thematic parts, which include: (1) supermarket services; (2) dedicated grocery delivery services and farm-to-table; (3) shopping in Virtual Reality and the metaverse; smart devices and (4) AI in food ordering-the last part includes smart devices, such as smart refrigerators, ovens, their functionality, and the services connected with them. The authors refer to 243 sources. The research includes the three following objectives: (1) exploring and presenting the emerging applied ways of online grocery shopping, (2) exploring and presenting the latest technological advances related to the digitalization of grocery shopping, (3) discussing the upcoming technologies, services, and methods in online grocery shopping. This paper provides knowledge about a wide range of solutions offered by both supermarkets and stores (e.g., shopping applications, VR applications, metaverse shopping) and other companies (e.g., deliveries, product tracking), highlighting the numerous functions available thanks to smart devices (e.g., voice control, own shopping lists, control of products, their quantities and expiration dates, management of user preferences, and many more). This paper also discusses social issues related to the presented solutions, such as their influence on consumer behavior, barriers to adoption, and the associated challenges.