Safeway is extending its aggressive high:low pricing programme to include non food lines. And it has also started the build up to Christmas by featuring seasonal products in its promotional leaflets. Seasonal confectionery brands currently on offer include Cadbury's Miniature Heroes down from £3.99 to £2.99 and Quality Street also down £1 to £2.25. And non food lines such as small electrical goods will also start appearing in future leaflets. Chief executive Carlos Criado-Perez said Safeway was doing everything "much faster" to keep the pressure on its rivals. He claimed the controversial high:low strategy was paying off in that it was now being seen as the benchmark for pricing in some areas. "Asda in the north is doing leaflets saying they are cheaper than us ­ so we must be hurting them a lot," he claimed. Criado-Perez defended the campaign against claims that it created spikes in demand that caused chaos in the supply chain. "It is much more complicated to manage a high:low strategy and it's riskier. But we do deals in 21 clusters. Therefore the risk is in the first two clusters when we have to master the forecasting. By the time it gets to the third cluster we are able to manage the process." But Allan Leighton, outgoing CEO of Wal-Mart Europe, dismissed his rival's claim that the campaign was hitting Asda stores. "When Asda was going to merge with Safeway it had fewer head to head stores than anyone else. You can draw your own conclusions from that," he said. {{NEWS }}

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