Case Study
Face-to-Face Consumer Interviews For Havering Council
All of the major supermarkets increased the number of deals they were offering in the run-up to Easter. The biggest uplifts came from Tesco and Asda, while Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Waitrose just increased their deals marginally [Assosia 4 w/e 24 March 2013].
Asda had 1,872 featured space promotions, up 4.4% on the previous month, while Tesco increased the number of deals it offered by 3.6% to 2,318. The figures reflect a wider trend towards more offers across the board as the big retailers continue to refine their offer to attract shoppers on ever-shrinking budgets.
As such, the main supermarkets had 26% more deals between them than a year ago – 10,053 compared with 7,998. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, and Waitrose beefed up the number of promos they offered by about a third, while Asda, which has been more focused on its EDLP strategy, offered just seven more deals than a year ago – or 0.38%.
Overall, Sainsbury’s offered the most deals at 2,504 – almost 200 more than Tesco – while Morrisons, which introduced its Every Penny Matters promotion during the period, had 2,177. While retailers are clearly keen to woo shoppers with attention-grabbing offers, with grocery sales flat they are also mindful of their own bottom lines. This is obvious from the depth of savings per deal they offered, which was mainly down both month-on-month and year-on-year.
Only Sainsbury’s managed to slightly increase its average saving year-on-year, but it cut its month-on-month figure by 1.8 percentage points. There was a major focus on own-label offers last month, with four of the five retailers increasing the proportion of their own products in their promotional mix. Only Asda bucked the trend, cutting its proportion of own-label deals from 17% to 14%.
The most popular promotional mechanic remains the standard ‘save’ deal, accounting for 37% of all promotions, a fall of 2.1 percentage points on 2012. However, x-for-y promotions are steadily increasing their share of total promotions, rising to 34.7% of the total, up 6.7 percentage points on 2012.
| 4 weeks to 24th March 2013 | |||||
| Asda | Morrisons | Sainsbury’s | Tesco | Waitrose | |
| Number of offers | 1872 | 2177 | 2504 | 2318 | 1182 |
| Number last month | 1794 | 2176 | 2500 | 2237 | 1180 |
| % change m-o-m | 4.35% | 0.05% | 0.16% | 3.62% | 0.17% |
| Number last year | 1865 | 1668 | 1855 | 1699 | 911 |
| % change on last year | 0.38% | 30.52% | 34.99% | 36.43% | 29.75% |
| Average start price (£) | £3.16 | £4.32 | £4.24 | £4.36 | £6.82 |
| Typical Average £ saving | £1.61 | £1.93 | £1.76 | £1.77 | £2.22 |
| Typical Average % saving | 29.11% | 35.62% | 32.90% | 31.38% | 29.52% |
| Average saving last month | 29.13% | 35.95% | 34.72% | 31.56% | 29.39% |
| Average saving last year | 29.87% | 38.84% | 32.23% | 37.41% | 35.43% |
| Current Brand:own-label ratio | 86:14 | 86:14 | 74:26 | 80:20 | 81:19 |
| Ratio 1 year ago | 83:17 | 91:09 | 80:20 | 85:15 | 83:17 |
| Average % saving (branded) | 30.22% | 36.30% | 34.49% | 33.46% | 29.23% |
| Average % saving (o/l) | 22.12% | 31.46% | 28.40% | 22.91% | 30.73% |
Published in The Grocer, 05 April 2013