Consumers ‘topping up’ help discounters make inroads

The latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, published today for the 12 weeks ending 12 June 2011 show the grocery market growing at 4.7% per year. However this conceals the sharp slow-down that was expected after the Royal Wedding and Easter boost. Growth for the four weeks ending 15 May 2011 was 7.8% but this has slumped to 2.5% for the latest four weeks.

Edward Garner, Communications Director at Kantar Worldpanel, explains: “Against this murky background, the ‘two nations’ effect continues unabated. Both Aldi and Lidl have grown at nearly 18% year-on-year and hold onto their all-time record shares of 3.4% and 2.6% respectively. Contrastingly, Waitrose posted the next highest growth at 8.9%. Further evidence for the ‘two nations’ trend is demonstrated by double-digit growth of Tesco’s Finest range.

“The discounters are attracting some new customers but most of their growth is coming from gaining a greater share of the household shopping list. Customers are making a main shopping trip to their favourite store and this is then ‘topped up’ with selective shopping at the discounter – this has been dubbed ‘canny shopping’.”

Elsewhere, Asda suffered a downturn this period dropping its share from 16.7% last year to 16.3%, with the discounters bagging a larger share of its shoppers’ expenditure.

Market share for Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons remains relatively constant this period at 30.9%, 16.2% and 12.0% respectively.

Edward Garner concludes: “As the household budget remains tight, there is no doubt that many shoppers are adopting coping strategies such as taking advantage of promotional offers or ‘topping up’ at the discounters. However, there is no sign of a return to the rapid growth of budget own-label ranges that we saw in 2008.”

Watch the previous commentary here