sainsbury's bogof multibuy

Supermarkets are shifting back towards multibuys, while at the same time offering fewer deals on food and drink and lower savings.

Almost all of the major multiples are running fewer featured space promotions than last year, with the exception of Asda, which has increased deals by 2.67% to 2,431 [Promo Dynamic Retailers: 4 w/e 20 August 2017].

Sainsbury’s has seen the biggest drop in promotional activity of 22.1%, compared with a 10%-15% drop across the Co-op, Tesco and Waitrose.

Despite increasing on a monthly basis, average savings on promotions are down year on year across most major supermarkets with the exception of Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

“The average percentage saving across all retailers works out to be 29.3% and only Asda and Sainsbury’s offer below-average savings of 27.6% and 28% respectively,” says Assosia director Kay Staniland.

It comes as the multiples have increased the use of multibuys. “The number of multibuys continues to increase slightly from 19.6% of promotions last year to 21.5% of this year’s promotional activity,” says Staniland. “Waitrose in particular has increased multibuys, now accounting for almost 30% of its promotions.”

Sainsbury’s has also ramped up multibuys by 4.3 percentage points to account for 17.5% of its total featured space promotions, though it has maintained its much-publicised ban on bogofs.

Tesco and Asda were the only major mults to cut back on multibuys compared with last year, with Tesco making the biggest reduction of 4.9 percentage points to 15.2% of total deals.

Average savings on x for y deals have fallen compared with last year, down by 1.5 percentage points to 23.6%, while save deals are offering average savings of 29.3% - up slightly from last year.