Supermarkets get into the Christmas spirit

Shoppers were also partial to a Christmas tipple with sales of alcohol up almost 6% ? a boost of ?13 million.

The latest grocery market share figures from Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland, published today for the 12 weeks ending 31 December 2017, reveal that shoppers spent an extra €90m on groceries over the festive period.

David Berry, director at Kantar Worldpanel, comments: “Over the Christmas period the average household spent a record €1,532 on groceries – an increase of €38 compared to last year. Much of this increase has been driven by staple items, with fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry posting a combined sales increase of €28m.

“Shoppers were also partial to a Christmas tipple with sales of alcohol up almost 6% – a boost of €13 million. Wine was the drink of choice this year with white wine and red wine sales up an impressive 10% and 12% respectively.”

Among the retailers, Dunnes Stores remained the top Irish supermarket. The grocer captured a market share of 23.0% – up 0.3 percentage points on this time last year – and achieved its strongest sales growth since May 2017, up 4.9%. Dunnes Stores’ customers remain loyal to the store, with perks such as the ‘Shop and Save’ campaign encouraging customers to add extra items to their shopping baskets.

David Berry continues: “Tesco also performed strongly, achieving its highest sales growth since February 2011, up 5.8%. The supermarket’s impressive growth helped it increase its market share by 0.5 percentage points compared to this time last year, and it now stands at 22.8%. SuperValu clocked in sales growth of 2.0%, with the grocer encouraging customers to spend an extra 70 cents every time they shop.”

Historically, shoppers have chosen to trade up over the Christmas period however Lidl seems to have broken the trend this year. The retailer enjoyed a positive performance over the Christmas period, with market share rising to 10.4% thanks to sales growth of 4.8%. While Aldi saw sales rise by 0.9% this was below the overall market level and led to a slight dip in market share – down 0.3 percentage points compared to this time last year.”

The trend towards online shopping is showing no signs of slowing down. David Berry explains: “Online grocers experienced impressive sales growth of 24%, which boosted their share of the market to a record 2.3% over the Christmas period. Although grocery e-commerce shoppers haven’t increased in number, customers who already shop online have upped the frequency of their purchases with, on average, one extra order placed over this period.”