Supermarkets record busiest ever month as bumper March outstrips sales at Christmas
● Shoppers spend £10.8bn on groceries during past four weeks ● Only 14.6 per cent of households received an online delivery
March was the busiest month on record for supermarkets across Britain as shoppers rushed to stock up on vital supplies to see them through the coronavirus pandemic.
Grocery sales rose by a staggering 20.6 per cent in the past four weeks and 7.6 per cent in the last 12 weeks, according to new data from Kantar, beating even Christmas shopping.
Fraser Mckevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: “Retailers and their staff have been on the frontline as households prepare for an extended stay at home, with grocery sales amounting to £10.8 billion during the past four weeks alone. That’s even higher than levels seen at Christmas, the busiest time of year under normal circumstances.”
Although grocery sales were high in the first two weeks of March, Britons increased their shopping in the middle of the month, with 88 per cent of households visiting a grocer between 16 March and 19 March, making an average of five trips each. This meant 42 million extra shopping trips in only four days.
Shoppers have tended to focus on buying supplies more regularly, rather than massively increasing the amount they buy per trip. However, shopping trolleys have been filling up more as well.
The average household increased its spending by £62.92 over the past four weeks. Shoppers in London, where the virus hit first, spent a quarter more than they usually do.
Mr Mckevitt said shoppers would be even more dependent on supermarkets in coming weeks, with restaurants and pubs closed across the country. This means that another 503 million meals will have to be prepared and eaten at home every week until restrictions ease.
Shoppers have also built up an extra £199 million stockpile of alcohol, a 22 per cent rise, and spent 28 per cent more on stock cupboard ingredients and frozen foods.
However, despite massive demand for deliveries, there has only been a minor upswing in online sales.
“Government advice may have been to get groceries delivered if possible, but limited delivery slots meant that only 14.6 per cent of households received an online delivery in the past four weeks, up from 13.8 per cent in March 2019, but probably well below actual demand,” Mr Mckevitt said. He said the panic buying had been “concentrated to a relatively low number of individuals” and this would taper off as supermarkets showed they were able to keep restocking their shelves.
All ten of the main supermarkets grew in the past 12 weeks,accordingtothekantar data. German discounters Lidl and Aldi performed strongly, growing by 17.6 per cent and 11 per cent respectively over the past 12 weeks.
At 7.4 per cent, Sainsbury’s was the best performer of the traditional big four supermarkets. Tesco grew by 5.5 per cent, Asda at 4.9 per cent and Morrisons at 4.6 per cent.
Iceland saw its sales up 11.7 per cent, while the Co-op’s convenience stores helped boost its sales by 9.4 per cent. Waitrose saw its fastest growth since November 2013 at 7.5 per cent.
Online-only supermarket Ocado, which was forced to take a days-long time-out as its website struggled to cope with the traffic, attracted 133,000 new customers in the past 12 weeks, with sales growing 12.5 per cent.
Tesco has meanwhile ramped up its home delivery and Click & Collect services after a surge in demand in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
The supermarket giant said it had grown its delivery and collection capacity to around 780,000 slots this week, up from 660,000 slots two weeks ago. There are plans to increase this by another 100,000 in coming weeks.
Theretaileraddedmorethan 200 new vans and recruited another 2,500 drivers and more than 5,000 pickers as part of the delivery expansion.
It comes after shoppers reported difficulties in securing online delivery slots on the back of soaring demand.
Last week Tesco said it was limiting shoppers to only 80 items per online order.
Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis said coronavirus has “led to unprecedented levels of demand for grocery shopping services”. He said: “We’re doing everything we can to increase the number of slots available and to support vulnerable people.
“Through a series of measures, including more drivers, pickers and vans, we’ll expand the number of slots available each week, but this still isn’t enough to meet the demand.
“For this reason it is vital that customers who can come into stores and shop for themselves do so.”
“We’re doing everything we can to increase the number of slots available and to support vulnerable people ... but this still isn’t enough.”
DAVE LEWIS
Tesco chief executive