Balance of power shifts for British supermarkets

AT LAST, some bad news for the German supermarket discounters.

Aldi and Lidl have been getting a pasting in the grocery wars over the coronavirus crisis months, to the advantage of our home-grown supermarkets. Most notable beneficiary? Turns out to be Sainsburys.

The discounters have suffered for two reasons: firstly, they can’t do online because it’s too expensive for their cut-price model. Second, in our terrified state of recent months, we Brits have been trying to do as few visits to the supermarkets as possible. That has meant a preference for doing all our shopping at a one-stop bog roll-to-barbecues shop like Sainsbury’s rather than topping up by hunting for bargains at Lidl.

Sainsbury’s online home delivery orders have pretty much doubled over the past quarter in number, with people buying more in each transaction. That makes for great revenue numbers, but the impact on profit margins waits to be seen.

The company says its online operation would have made a profit for the past three years if it had been a standalone business, but still refuses to say how much. The suspicion is, not a lot.

More profitable will be click and collect, which has also boomed in the big behavioural Covid shift.

All this brings in an interesting dynamic for the property end of the business. The story with big grocers for a decade and more has been about ditching megastores for inner city convenience shops.

Now, Sainsbury finds its bigger sites are vital as most customers are staying away from the city as they work from home and the big stores serve the online division.

New chief Simon Roberts tempered any share price boost today with a rightly cautious note on the economy (so temper your enthusiasm about Argos). But the longer term trends are in his favour. Time to pay the dividend Sainsbury’s deferred in April.