Shoppers Pocket the Change Over Christmas As One Million

12January 2016

Shoppers pocket the change over Christmas as one million

more head to the discounters

The latest grocery share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, published today for the 12 weeks ending 3 January 2016, showed no Christmas uplift for the British grocery market as sales fell by 0.2% on last year thanks to continuing price deflation. However the discount retailers, Waitrose, the Co-operative and Sainsbury’s successfully grew ahead of the market and were the share winners over Christmas.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, explains: “Shoppers reaped the benefit of falling prices this Christmas, with groceries 1.8% cheaper than last year. The amount spent on a typical Christmas dinner fell even faster – down by 2.2% – mainly due to cheaper poultry and traditional vegetable trimmings. Alcohol sales increased thanks to a surge in popularity for sparkling wines including Champagne and Prosecco,which increased in value by 11%.

“Wednesday 23 December was the single biggest shopping day of the year, but the anticipated uplift from an extra day in the week before Christmas didn’t help the supermarkets overall. Consumers simply delayed their shopping trips later this year, rather than making any extra trips.”

Once again, Sainsbury’s was the best performing of the traditional supermarkets. Its premium Taste the Difference brand posted its biggest ever Christmas sales and promotional efforts were concentrated on simple price cuts rather than complicated multi-buy deals. This helped attract an additional 114,000 shoppers, with sales increasing by 0.8% on last year.

The structural upheaval caused by discounters Aldi and Lidl continued into the Christmas period. Lidl was the fastest growing retailer overall, with sales up by 18.5%. An expanded product range, especially in its Deluxe premium line, has encouraged consumers to increase the size of their shop, with average basket sizes up by 7% to £17.20. Aldi followed with an increase in sales of 13.3%.

Fraser McKevitt continues: “The discounters are continuing to establish themselves in the minds of British consumers – almost one in eight did their single biggest December shopping trip in Aldi or Lidl, on top of the 15.6 million households who visited at some point in the 12 weeks. That is an increase of nearly one million shoppers on last year, and theircombined share is up from 8.3% last year to 9.7%. Despite Aldi and Lidl’s success,consumers are still spending most of their money in more traditional supermarkets, particularly in December, andtotal discounter share has dipped from the 10.0% achieved just before Christmas.”

While Tesco sales fell by 2.7%, an investment in its ‘festive five’ fruit and vegetable promotions meant it was an improvement on last month’s performance. The retailer’s share went down to 28.3%, with Asda and Morrisons also declining to 16.2% and 11.0% respectively. Morrisons share loss was expected as it continues to feel the effects of recent store closures, and the retailer hasn’t repeated last year’s Christmas Bonus loyalty cash promotion.

As usual Waitrose benefited from shoppers trading up at Christmas, growing sales by 1.5%and taking share back up to 5.2%. The Co-operative also won share at Christmas for the first time since the Somerfield acquisition – its sales growth of 1.4% was enough for itto secure 6.0% of the market.

Ends

An update on inflation

Grocery inflation now stands at -1.8%* for the 12 week period ending 3 January 2016. This means shoppers are now paying less for a representative basket of groceries than they did in 2015. This is the 17th consecutive period of grocery price deflation.Falling prices reflect the impact of Aldi and Lidl and the market’s competitive response, as well as deflation in some major categories such as crisps, eggs and butter, as well as important celebratory markets such as ice cream, fresh & frozen poultry and cheese.

*This figure is based on over 75,000 identical products compared year-on-year in the proportions purchased by shoppers and therefore represents the most authoritative figure currently available. It is a ‘pure’ inflation measure in that shopping behaviour is held constant between the two comparison periods – shoppers are likely to achieve a lower personal inflation rate if they trade down or seek out more offers.

Kantar Worldpanel has launched a new data visualisation tool that allows you to view and analyse Grocery Market Share data online. The latest sales share figures for all of the major grocers can be viewed and compared with historical figures here and all graphics within the Kantar Worldpanel dataviz are available to embed in your site. (Optimal viewing in recent versions of Internet Explorer or Chrome)

Follow us on Twitter at and join the debate #GroceryMarketShare.

Notes to editors

Please note that four week ending or six week ending retailer share data should not be used in media reporting. We would recommend that you use the 12 week ending data stated in this release, as it covers a longer time period which means it is a superior indicator of retailer performances and trends.

For all publicly-quoted Worldpanel data, users of our research (including media) must ensure that data is sourced Kantar Worldpanel.

These findings are based on Kantar Worldpanel data for the 12 weeks to 3January 2016. Kantar Worldpanel monitors the household grocery purchasing habits of 30,000 demographically representative households in Great Britain. All data discussed in the above announcement is based on the value of items being bought by these consumers, Kantar Worldpanel will only support data that is published in the context we have presented it and our own interpretation of these findings. We cannot be held responsible for any other interpretation of these findings.

For further information, please contact:

Alyona Levitin / Rebecca Daley
Camargue
+44 (0)20 7636 7366
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