The proportion of shoppers who have abandoned a big weekly shop in favour of shopping little and often has stalled at 16%, according to the 2018 edition of the Shoppercentric Shopper Stock Take Index.
The figure soared from 11% to 16% last year, but now appears to have hit its ceiling.
There was also a modest rise in the number of shoppers who have used a c-store in the last month, up to 49% from 47% in 2017. All the other main channels also saw growth, most notably Discounters, which leapfrogged Convenience to claim 57% use against last year’s 44%.
These numbers show that more shoppers are now choosing to ‘channel-hop’ and indeed, shoppers’ average repertoire has risen to five stores or websites visited in the last fortnight – an increase of one since 2017.
Shoppers are clearly finding times tough, with half going out of their way to find the best prices. The majority (three in five) are now buying own-label goods to keep a lid on spiralling costs. A quarter has noticed prices “increasing a lot”, with half reporting smaller rises. As with most things these days, Brexit gets the blame for this, with 50% of shoppers citing Britain’s departure from the EU as the main reason for price hikes.
Commenting on the rise in shopper repertoire, Danielle Pinnington, Managing Director at Shoppercentric, said: “Loyalty as we used to know it is an outdated term. This is not the year to hunker down and hope the storm passes over with limited damage. Now is the time to get out and about amongst today’s consumers and shoppers so that marketing strategies resonate with their needs, flexing as those needs change to cope with whatever 2018 throws at them.”
