Sales in grocery retailers grew 5.1% year-on-year in the 12 weeks to 16 May on the back of a record-high levels of price promotions.
‘Shoppers are currently looking for even more promotions with 32% of all sales being goods on offer in the four weeks to May 2009, another record high. Typically this time of year it is around 28%,' said Mike Watkins, senior manager retailer services at Nielsen. The Nielsen data is based on all purchases, bar-coded and non bar-coded, brought back into the home from any outlet by an in-home scanning panel of more than 14,500 households.
The actual change in behaviour reflects the mood of consumers of a separate poll Nielsen conducted in April.
`Some 68% of GB respondents said they were switching to cheaper grocery brands in order to cut down on living expenses. Furthermore, 32% said they intend to continue to cut down on grocery spending in this way after the recession is over. This indicates that the need for retailers to show good value for money should now be considered long term, as a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour has taken place over the past months,' Watkins said.
The trends will favour price-lead retailers, he said.
`At face value this will be good news for Asda, Tesco and the discounters but it is also an opportunity for all other retailers to get a bigger share of wallet of the recession-struck shopper.'
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