More consumers are using their mobile devices to buy groceries via safe shopping online than ever before, according to the latest figures published by Shoppercentric.

A thousand people from the UK participated in the latest study, with 45 per cent saying that they use their smartphone to order their weekly food delivery.

Traditional desktop and laptop computers are still more popular for grocery shopping than any other platform, with 63 per cent of respondents saying that they had used a PC to make a purchase within the past 30 days.

Tablets sit in third place, with just under a third of those questioned saying that they carried out safe shopping online via grocery sites using this type of device.

The bottom of the list of touchpoints used by consumers this year was occupied by smartwatches and other wearables, with just two per cent of people citing them as being part of their grocery shopping experience.

In terms of annual growth, smartphones have seen the biggest surge in use over the past 12 months when it comes to buying groceries. In 2017 just 27 per cent of people pulled out their mobile to place an order, which means interest has risen significantly in the interim.

Analysts also asked respondents about how regularly they visited retail outlets specifically tailored towards selling products at big discounts compared with their mainstream counterparts. Fifty seven per cent said that they did so on a regular basis, up from 44 per cent last year.

This suggests that consumers are tightening their purse strings and paying more attention to price when buying food and other consumables. Whether this will be a long term trend or a short term shift remains to be seen, but economic instability on the horizon paints an uncertain picture of the future.