This week sees the launch of our new TradeTrak market share barometer using ACNielsen’s Homescan Panel.
Each month we will measure retailers’ market shares based on total till purchases bought into the home by an in-home scanning panel of 10,000 households. The total till measure includes all products stocked by any outlet, including durables and clothing. It has been introduced to illustrate the increasing importance of non-food.
We have also introduced comparisons of penetration of shoppers, average visits per buyer, average spend per buyer and average spend per visit, which will appear on rotating basis.
And from next month we will include a chart comparing the total till roll with figures that only cover grocery in traditional form.
That should flag up retailers’ strengths in grocery and non-food, and the difference that non-food is making to retailers’ bottom lines.
In the most important weeks of the year, the four weeks up to December 27, Asda achieved its best ever total till roll share of 19%.
It also achieved one of its highest-ever shopper penetrations, with over 38% of households shopping at one of its stores - more than shopped at Sainsbury. This is a significant milestone given that Asda does not have the number of stores that Tesco or Sainsbury have in London and the south.
The grocery multiples overall delivered 7% sales growth in December. Asda continued to increase its market share over the 12 weeks to December 27, reaching 17.9% against Sainsbury at 16.1%. Tesco increased share to nearly to 27% while Morrisons’ 16% sales growth over Christmas meant it had increased its overall market share to 6%.
If you were not an out-of-town retailer, times may have been tough at Christmas. Be it food or non-food, incremental growths on the high street were difficult to achieve, as shown by the declining or flat performance of Safeway, Somerfield Group and Iceland and by profit warnings and sales downgrades from WH Smith and some fashion retailers.
Mike Watkins, ACNielsen manager of retailer services, reports that “in contrast, the sales of non-foods such as clothing, homeware, electrical and seasonal continue to grow in double figures for many food retailers and out-of-town consumer demand remains strong, so the big chains will expect to gain further market share in 2004.“

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