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17th October 2007, Oxford
Shoppers remained cautious in the last 4 weeks with sales across all retailers in the grocery sector slowing to +3.7%, lower than the 4.1% growth over the full 12 weeks versus the same 12 week period last year.
Mike Watkins, Senior Manager Retailer Services at Nielsen commented, "All retailers are up against strong comparativesfrom this time last year whentotal till growths were strong at + 6.8%”
Morrisons new branding and a heavy television campaign has seen sales improve in the last 4 weeks. Watkins continued “Morrisonshave seen salesgrowthsgoing up from the low point in July, in each of the last 3 months. If this trend continues it wouldbe the start of a sustained sales lead recovery in time for Christmas, a timewhen shoppers can be persuaded to try new retailers.”
Iceland has continued to drive spend per visitand spend perbuyer, with their back- to- basics discounting and television campaign.Discounters(Aldi,Lidl and Netto) have also shown a strong 13% growth over the last 12 weeks and now have just under 5% share of trade in Grocery categories.
Despite the loss of market shareand household penetration asSomerfield continues to rationalise itsstore portfolio,the shopper spendper visit has shown some encouraginggrowths ( + 11% versus a year ago ) demonstrating that existing shoppers are starting to spend more in the newly ranged Somerfield shops.
Waitrose have benefited the most from the recent warm weather and were also helped by a strong in store and promotional offer as part of Organic fortnight.
Watkins concluded, “Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda have all increased market share as the momentum from their Summer price cuts continues and the warm Autumn weather has buoyed consumer spending. This also helped sales of general merchandise which remained strong in the last 4 weeks with +9.5% growth. However as the winter nights draw in and the temperature drops, it will be interesting to see how cautious shoppers become prior to the Christmas extravagance.”
About Nielsen Homescan Total Till Unless otherwise stated, 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. Total spend includes all items stocked by any outlet, including grocery, durables and clothing.
About The Nielsen Company
The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (NetRatings and BuzzMetrics), mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com
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