11.23.10
The grocery store continues to evolve due to the lingering effects of The Great Recession. A new study, Grocery Shopping In The New Economy 2010, from Vertis Communications, found that:
- 57% of men regard themselves as chief grocery shoppers, up from 47% in 2006; this gain is fairly consistent across adult age groups. This compares with 85% of women in both years of comparison.
- A majority of adults still use newspaper inserts to decide where to shop for groceries and help shape their shopping lists. Although, just 46% of men ages 18 to 34 do so. (Vertis noted corroboration with the National Grocers Association 2010 Consumer Survey Report, conducted by SupermarketGuru.com, in which 66% of respondents said they seek grocery specials in newspapers.)
- More than 90% of women age 35 and up and about 80% of men age 35 and up reads direct mail from grocery stores. Three-quarters of these readers redeem direct mail coupons.
- By contrast, just 13% of adult consumers visited a retailer’s website to plan a store trip within a month prior to answering the survey.
- Conventional supermarkets remain the preferred choice for perishables (cited by 64.9% of Vertis survey respondents), but encroachment is visible: 19.1% say they usually buy perishables in discount stores, and 8.1% cite wholesale clubs.
- Indeed, 63% of adults buy perishables at two or more different stores on average within a two-week period; this behavior increases with the presence of children in the household.
- The supermarket, discounter and club channels are much closer in their ability to attract trips for non-perishables: just 43.4% for supermarkets vs. 38.6% for discounters and 14.1% for wholesale clubs.
- Price is overwhelmingly the number one factor in store selection among adult men and women in all age groups.