M&S’s grocery sales growth has slowed since the cyberattack on the retailer, according to the two most up-to-date measures of its performance.
M&S’s grocery sales were up 9.1% year on year in the 12 weeks to 4 June, according to NIQ’s latest monthly market update, published this morning. While still a strong performance, it is some way off the 14.7% growth M&S achieved in the 12 weeks to 19 April, just before hackers struck over the Easter bank holiday weekend.
At that time, M&S was the fastest-growing bricks & mortar grocer, with Lidl in second place on 11.2% growth. The latest NIQ data now has Lidl ahead, having maintained its 11.2% growth.
M&S’s market share has slipped from 3.9% in April to 3.7% in NIQ’s latest snapshot. It means it has lost a lead on Waitrose, which has maintained a steady 3.7% share over the same period.
Read more: How far has the cyberattack knocked M&S off course?
Kantar’s latest monthly snapshot yesterday also showed M&S’s grocery sales growing more slowly than they were in the weeks prior to the cyberattack. They were up by 12% year on year in the 12 weeks to 15 June, compared with 14.4% in the 12 weeks to 20 April.
“We continue to make good progress in growing our Food business, outperforming the market on both volume and value in all the latest data,” said an M&S spokesperson.
“We’ve launched over 200 new and upgraded lines in our foodhalls over the last two weeks, exciting both new and existing customers as they visit us more often and drive our market share growth over the long term.”
M&S acknowledged it was experiencing “pockets of limited availability” in Food Halls as it took systems offline in the days after hackers struck.
It also emerged today that M&S did not supply data for the BRC-KPMG retail sales monitor, leading the BRC to substitute historical data from the retailer as placeholder in its weekly benchmark sent to contributing members, according to The Telegraph.
Read more: Law firm signs up 300 M&S customers in days for class action data lawsuit
The BRC maintains it was transparent with members about the measure, and that it amounts to standard statistical practice to avoid short-term distortions.
“The BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor is a leading indicator of retail sales activity in the UK used by businesses, analysts and the government,” said a BRC spokesperson.
“All retail contributors submit their data on the basis that it remains strictly confidential and secure. We have tried and tested processes to ensure that no commercially sensitive information, including market share, can be deduced from changes to the data – particularly where a contributor is unable to submit for a period of time, or when contributors leave or join the benchmark.”
M&S said in its results in May that it expected to take a £300m hit to annual profit as a result of online clothing & home orders being disrupted until July.
The online disruption also means shoppers are unable to check which food products are available in their favoured store.
M&S began resuming online clothing and home orders of selected ranges earlier this month, with GlobalData estimating it could have lost £130m in clothing sales by that point.
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