Supermarkets should expand their click & collect services to cater for low-income shoppers, consultancy firm Oliver Wyman has advised.
Budget-constrained customers would be more likely to shop online if they could collect their shopping free of charge, the firm said in a report on low-income shoppers.
Home delivery fees - however small - could act as a deterrent for this group, said Nick Harrison, European retail practice co-leader at the company.
“If you’re a family on a tight budget, every pound counts so you don’t necessarily want to pay someone to do something that you can do yourself,” he explained.
Harrison acknowledged that supermarkets were upping their game in this space - Sainsbury’s is due to open 100 more click & collect sites this year, while Tesco and Asda have both put in planning applications to open more. But he said the service was largely “on a small scale” and needed to become more widespread.
Taking cash payments at click & collect sites may be another way of catering for customers on a budget, Harrison added. “Low-income people are more likely to pay with cash rather than cards,” he said. “That’s hard online but there are ways to solve that like accepting cash payment when they collect their shopping.”
The Oliver Wyman report said low-income customers represented 19% of grocery spend in the UK.
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