Online confectionery sales have passed the £100m mark for the first time, The Grocer can reveal.
The article is part of our Confectionery Report 2014.
Brits have spent £101.1m on confectionery online in the past year, up 28.4% year-on-year. Total grocery, meanwhile, is up 20.3% online [Kantar Worldpanel 52 w/e 25 May]. The internet now accounts for 3% of total confectionery sales.
“We work with all the multiples on websites and online sales, which is becoming an increasingly important channel,” says Mondelez marketing director Matthew Williams. Featured space promotions are particularly helpful in driving impulse purchases online, he adds.
“When considering impulsivity it is important to distinguish between impulse purchase and impulse consumption. There’s no reason why impulse purchase can’t occur online.”
Confectionery sales
| VALUE SALES (£m) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| y/e 26 May 13 | y/e 25 May 14 | y-o-y % | |
| Online | 78.8 | 101.1 | 28.4 |
| Bricks & Mortar | 3,133.00 | 3,220.50 | 2.8 |
On-the-go impulse sales of confectionery are in decline, having fallen 0.9% in value; in volume that decline is 4.5%. Conversely, take-home sales are up 3.4% on volumes up 3.3%, suggesting that more of us are buying chocolate as part of a structured shopping routine, rather than on impulse.
This explains in part why brands that are particularly reliant on impulse sales are suffering. For example, Cadbury has grown partly off the back of the larger tablet format, more suited to take-home consumption; Galaxy has remained more reliant on single countlines.
The brand is down 6% on volumes down 3.3 [IRI 52 w/e 21 June]. “While the take-home market has been growing over the last few years, impulse remains a hugely important part of confectionery,” says Tony Lorman, retail excellence director at brand owner Mars.
“Singles play a really important part in the rollout of innovation and we believe there’s still a lot of opportunity to improve in-store display to drive the impulse category.”
Take home confectionery sales (52 w/e 25 May 2014)
| VALUE | VOLUME | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £m | y-o-y% | packs(m) | y-o-y% | |
| Chocolate Confectionery | 2,511.40 | 3.7 | 2,055.70 | 5 |
| Sugar Confectionery | 810.2 | 2.5 | 952 | -0.3 |
| Total | 3,321.60 | 3.4 | 3,007.70 | 3.3 |
On the go confectionery sales (52 w/e 25 May 2014)
| VALUE | VOLUME | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £m | y-o-y% | packs(m) | y-o-y% | |
| Chocolate Confectionery | 1,131,876 | -0.8 | 1,686.34 | -4.3 |
| Sugar Confectionery | 504,929 | -0.9 | 852.79 | -4.9 |
| Total | 1,636,806 | -0.9 | 2,539.13 | -4.5 |
Back to Confectionery Report 2014.
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The take-home snapshot is produced by Kantar Worldpanel. Kantar Worldpanel monitors the grocery retailer take-home purchasing habits of 30,000 demographically representative British households. Call 020 8967 0007 or visit www.kantarworldpanel.com for details
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