The benchmarks: 2.99% median CVR, $172 median AOV. The 25th–75th percentile AOV range is $112–$334. Food & Beverage ranks third in CVR across the 10 published industries — and posted the strongest Q1→Q2 CVR gain of any category in H1 2026.
CVR jumped +22.6% from Q1 to Q2 — more than double the +10.4% recorded in the same period in 2025, and 12.2 percentage points above it. The monthly data tells a consistent story: CVR in H1 2026 ran above H1 2025 in most months. This is one of the few categories in the dataset where 2026 looks better than 2025 on a like-for-like basis.
On order value: $172 is the lowest median in the dataset. That reflects the nature of the category — frequent, smaller purchases rather than high-ticket items. AOV was essentially flat from Q1 to Q2 (+0.1%), and the monthly trend stayed in a tight $170–$175 band across all of H1 2026. The growth story here is through conversion volume, not basket expansion.
Food & Beverage is one of the few categories in the H1 2026 dataset where CVR ran above its year-ago equivalent across most months. The +22.6% Q1→Q2 gain is the largest of any published industry.
The median Food & Beverage CVR in H1 2026 was 2.99%, third among the 10 published industries.
The top three converting categories — Health & Wellness, Beauty & Personal Care, and Food & Beverage — share a pattern. Customers in these categories tend to know what they want before they arrive. They are buying something they have bought before, or something close to it. That familiarity may contribute to a faster session-to-order cycle, though the data alone can’t confirm the mechanism.
The P75 for Food & Beverage CVR is 7.27% — the widest upper tail in the dataset. Some stores in this category convert at rates that would be exceptional in any other industry. The wide spread likely reflects a mix of subscription-style merchants, DTC brands with highly loyal audiences, and one-off purchase stores.
The 2.99% median sits well above the cross-industry median of 1.74%. But the P75 of 7.27% suggests there is a cohort of Food & Beverage merchants converting at rates the category headline doesn’t fully capture.
The chart below shows monthly median CVR and bounce rate for active Food & Beverage stores in Shogun’s conversion tracking network.
The 18-month data shows a category that strengthened through 2025 and into 2026. Every month of H1 2026 came in above its year-ago equivalent — including June 2026 (4.23%) clearing an already-elevated June 2025 (3.86%). That kind of consistent month-over-month improvement is uncommon across the full dataset.
November 2025 stands out sharply at 5.25% — the highest single-month CVR in the 18-month window for this category. One possible explanation is that food and beverage purchases tend to increase around the holidays as people stock up, gift specialty items, or order for gatherings. But that’s a hypothesis; the data shows the spike without telling us why.
December 2025 (4.53%) remained well above H1 2025 levels before settling to elevated levels in January 2026 (3.41%). The Q2 2026 months showed further gains, with June 2026 reaching 4.23% — above June 2025’s 3.86%.
Bounce rates were relatively stable across the period. Unlike categories such as Beauty or Home & Garden, there was no sustained upward shift in bounce rate from 2025 to 2026. The 42%–50% range held across most months, with some variation but no clear deteriorating trend.
The H1 2026 median AOV for Food & Beverage was $172, the lowest of the 10 published industries. This data set covers full-store Shopify order data, separate from the CVR cohort above.
The chart below tracks monthly median AOV for the 328 qualifying stores.
The AOV trend is the flattest in the dataset. With the exception of November 2025 ($195), the entire 13-month window sits in a $159–$177 band. From January through June 2026, the range narrows further to $170–$175 — a spread of just $5 across six months.
November 2025 ($195) is the only meaningful departure from that band. Whether that reflects gifting behavior, larger holiday orders, or something else in the mix is unclear from the data alone. What the data does show is that it was temporary — AOV returned to the $170–$175 range in December and stayed there.
June 2026 ($175) came in above June 2025 ($159). That improvement is consistent with the broader CVR story: the category appears to be in a stronger position in H1 2026 than it was in the same period a year ago.
On a matched same-store basis (n=151 stores active in both H1 2025 and H1 2026), median AOV grew from $161 to $169 — a +5.0% year-over-year increase. In a category defined by small, frequent purchases, that modest upward movement confirms the direction the monthly data suggests.
Food & Beverage is the clearest example in the H1 2026 dataset of a category growing through conversion volume rather than basket size. CVR is up significantly year-over-year. AOV was flat from Q1 to Q2 (+0.1%) and grew a modest +5.0% on a matched year-over-year basis — consistent with a category where price points are set by the nature of the product, not by seasonal demand swings. More orders at similar price points — that’s the shape of the growth.
The combination of high CVR and low AOV is worth understanding on its own terms. At $172 median AOV and 2.99% median CVR, a Food & Beverage merchant generates more revenue per 100 sessions than a Sports & Outdoors merchant at 1.24% CVR and $391 AOV — but through a different mechanism. The math is closer than the AOV gap suggests.
The +22.6% Q1→Q2 CVR gain is the headline figure, but the more durable signal may be the month-by-month improvement relative to 2025. Six consecutive months of higher CVR than the prior year suggests something more sustained than a one-quarter spike.
If your Food & Beverage CVR is at or above 2.99%, you’re at the category median or better. If your AOV is well above $172, you may be in a sub-market — specialty, premium, or B2B food — where this benchmark understates your opportunity.
The $172 median and the $112–$334 P25-to-P75 range reflect a category that is more price-consistent than most. The 3× spread is narrower than categories like Beauty (4.3×) or Home & Garden (4×). Most Food & Beverage merchants in this dataset operate at relatively similar price points.
That said, the category spans a wide range of business types. A subscription coffee brand, a direct-to-consumer hot sauce company, and a specialty cheese retailer are all “Food & Beverage” — but they have different order structures, purchase frequencies, and customer relationships. The stores above the P75 ($334) may be capturing large wholesale or gifting orders that push AOV well above the typical transaction.
CVR is the more meaningful benchmark for this category than AOV. At nearly 3%, the median is strong by any standard — and the upper end of the distribution suggests that some stores in this category have built purchasing patterns that convert at rates rarely seen outside of subscription commerce.
The $172 AOV benchmark is the right reference point for most Food & Beverage merchants. But the CVR benchmark — and whether you’re above or below 2.99% — is likely the more actionable number for diagnosing performance.
See the full H1 2026 data — and benchmarks across nine other ecommerce categories — in the Shogun Benchmark Reports.
View the CVR report | View the AOV report
