Data: M&S and Ocado soar but Asda sales decline further
Ocado and M&S have seen sales surge over the last 12 weeks, while Asda sales have taken a dip, according to new data from NielsenIQ (NIQ).
New figures from NIQ’s Total Till show that sales remained strong at both M&S and Ocado, which grew 12% and 17.1% respectively, over the last 12 weeks. Waitrose experienced a healthy increase in new shoppers over the 12 weeks, growing 3.4%.
This is despite grocery sales growth slowing over March to 2.7%, down from 4% the previous month. The slower growth may be due to the later timing of Easter and Mother’s Day this year.
However, Asda’s sales took a hit over the period. The supermarket saw a decline of -6.0% in sales over the last twelve weeks, which NIQ attributed to the impact of recent price cuts and the early stages of a new pricing strategy.
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Last month, Asda added a further 1,500 products, in-store and online, to its Rollback campaign, bringing the total of items reduced to nearly 10,000 products. This accounts for almost a third of the grocery retailer’s entire range. The proposition was first introduced at the end of January.
“Shopping behaviour continues to evolve, with consumers increasingly shopping around for the best prices and offers whilst looking to stretch budgets ahead of planned rises to essential bills at the start of April,” said NIQ head of retailer and business insights Mike Watkins.
“This could be helping Discounters capture a greater share of the regular weekly shop. The channel now holds an 18.1% share of all FMCG sales in Q1—the highest in over two years—with an average spend per visit of £24.09.”
“Looking ahead, retailers have reasons to be optimistic this dip in sales won’t last. Sunnier weather at the start of April and the lead up to Easter will encourage extra spend which will then improve topline sales. We expect all retailers to keep an eye on the favourable start of spring.”
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Asda seems lost TBH, I can’t see where they fit in between Tesco, Sainsbury’s and the discounters TBH.
I’m struggling to see how Asda’s going to cope with so much debt while lowering it’s profit margin.