Rimi's e-store is doing well, with a nearly 37 percent sales growth over the past year. However, online purchases still account for less than 5 percent of all sales, compared to the U.K. where online sales make up a tenth.

Helen Lednei, head of Rimi's e-store, told ERR that although the store was launched four years ago, it seems that this year it could become profitable for the first time. At least in the first half of the year, Rimi's e-store was slightly profitable.

"This year, for example, we focused on business customers, developing various payment solutions for them. For instance, they can set up recurring orders and other options that make their lives easier. I see significant business potential here, and we definitely want to move forward with this," noted Lednei.

Rimi stands out significantly from its competitors. Grossi's grocery store and Coop, for example, do not have separate e-stores, as they do not consider them economically viable.

Coop closed its e-store a few years ago and has no plans to re-enter e-commerce.

"In e-commerce, you can see that the companies operating separately tend to incur losses of a couple of million euros annually. We at Coop did not want to subsidize it, seeing that it does not add significant value for our customers. Instead, we invest that money in new stores and renovating old ones," said Coop's CEO, Rainer Rohtla.

Prisma's e-store, operating for six years, and Barbora, associated with Maxima, are still unprofitable.

Anne-Maria Brusila, head of e-commerce at Prisma, said that online purchases currently make up about 3 percent of all their sales. While Barbora grew by around 15 percent over the past year, Prisma's e-store didn't even manage that.

"To offer a better user experience for our customers, we decided to update our e-stores. We improved technical solutions, made the design more attractive and user-friendly and enhanced search and payment options," said Brusila.

Ljubov Seibak, head of marketing and assortment at Barbora, said they still plan to expand.

"It is too early to talk about profitability because we are still expanding. All these expansions, especially opening new regions, require a lot of investment. I think once we have expanded as much as possible regionally, we will start looking at how quickly we can reach profitability," said Seibak.

Helen Lednei of Rimi's e-store believes the e-store has strong potential and that it is entirely possible to reach the goal of 10 percent of purchases being made through the e-store.

"If we look at the younger generation, they shop in a completely different way. I suggest that in the next five to ten years, this shopping behavior could change significantly," she said.

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