Case Study
Face-to-Face Consumer Interviews For Havering Council
Asda is getting festive as it ramps up deals on confectionery, biscuits and snacks ahead of Christmas.
It hiked the number of featured space promotions by 21.2% last month to 2,298, which is 4.4% higher than this time last year.
Impulse accounted for 38.5% of its offers, up 17.4 percentage points year on year. Deals on confectionery were up 180.3% to 398, with biscuits up 264.9% to 281 and crisps, snacks & nuts up 72.3% to 145. Asda also increased offers outside impulse, with considerably more deals on meat (+147.5), cereals (195%), canned goods (75%), energy & sports drinks £108.3%) and coffee (150%) than this time last year.
Asda has also slashed average savings on its promotions, however, this could correspond with a big reductions in multibuys, with x-for-y deals cut in half in favour of more ‘save’ offers. “Asda’s average savings are down by 8.4%, contrasting strongly with its massive increase in offers,” says Kay Staniland, director at Assosia. “Despite the yearly savings decrease, however, Asda is the cheapest retailer when comparing average starting prices and promo prices, which have both dropped compared to 2016.”
Elsewhere, all the other retailers are offering more promotions and better savings than this time last year, except Waitrose, where average savings are down marginally. The biggest increase in average savings of 5.7% year on year was from Morrisons.
With the focus now on Christmas, the number of confectionery deals is up by 35.2%, biscuits by 89.2% and meat by 30.4%. But there are 14.8% fewer deals on wine in the mults than last year, and 5.6% fewer deals on beer and lager. BWS accounted for 17.4% of total deals last month compared with 19.8% in the four-week period in 2016, while impulse accounted for 25.6% of deals, up from 20.4%.
| 4 weeks to 5th November 2017 | ||||||
| Asda | Co-op | Morrisons | Sainsbury’s | Tesco | Waitrose | |
| Number of offers | 2787 | 906 | 2291 | 2740 | 2356 | 1347 |
| Number last month | 2536 | 828 | 2160 | 2465 | 2192 | 1227 |
| % change m-o-m | 9.90% | 9.42% | 6.06% | 11.16% | 7.48% | 9.78% |
| Number last year | 2298 | 798 | 2235 | 2950 | 2217 | 1238 |
| % change on last year | 21.28% | 13.53% | 2.51% | -7.12% | 6.27% | 8.80% |
| Average start price (£) per UNIT | £3.30 | £3.90 | £4.44 | £4.75 | £4.30 | £6.01 |
| Typical Average TOTAL £ saving | £1.15 | £1.35 | £1.68 | £1.35 | £1.41 | £2.02 |
| Typical Average TOTAL % saving | 29.1% | 35.2% | 35.5% | 28.7% | 32.7% | 30.0% |
| Average % saving last month | 27.8% | 34.9% | 35.0% | 28.0% | 31.6% | 29.6% |
| % savings change m-o-m | 4.42% | 0.81% | 1.46% | 2.56% | 3.45% | 1.28% |
| Average % saving last year | 31.8% | 34.9% | 33.5% | 27.8% | 31.8% | 30.5% |
| % savings change on last year | -8.43% | 0.83% | 5.73% | 3.08% | 2.91% | -1.87% |
| Current Brand:own-label ratio | 91:9 | 78:22 | 90:10 | 78:22 | 85:15 | 87:13 |
| Ratio 1 year ago | 88:12 | 71:29 | 91:9 | 79:21 | 86:14 | 87:13 |
| Average % saving (branded) | 29.9% | 36.1% | 36.0% | 29.5% | 33.4% | 30.0% |
| Average % saving (o/l) | 20.7% | 32.1% | 30.6% | 25.7% | 29.1% | 29.9% |
| AVERAGE STARTING PRICE LAST YEAR | £3.73 | £4.10 | £4.44 | £4.57 | £4.29 | £6.49 |
| Increase/Decrease in starting price £ | -£0.43 | -£0.19 | £0.01 | £0.18 | £0.02 | -£0.47 |
| Increase/Decrease in starting price % | -13.06% | -4.92% | 0.19% | 3.85% | 0.39% | -7.83% |
Published in The Grocer, 16 November 2017