What you need to know
The grocery superstores whose growth has dominated food retailing since the early 1950s are now losing market share. We think the underlying reasons for this are socio-economic, allied to the growth of the hard discounters, Aldi and Lidl. Online is primarily a service to customers, though online shoppers spend less and that is also a small negative factor.
The market is shifting to the high street with convenience stores, hard discounters and also the non-food discounters such as Home Bargains and Poundland benefitting.
But this is not the end of superstores. Their decline should stabilise in due course and they need to rethink their format for shoppers who may visit less often, but who will want to spend longer there when they do.
Areas covered in this report
The main focus of this report is the superstores of the market leaders – those stores which people use to do their main shop. Convenience retailing is covered more specifically in Mintel’s report on Convenience stores – UK, April 2015, the last edition of which was in April 2015. We also cover the hard discounters, Aldi and Lidl, whose appeal straddles both the main shop and convenience arenas.
Online shopping is covered in Mintel’s reports on Online Retailing – UK, July 2015 and on Online Grocery Retailing -UK, March 2015, though this report pulls the issues together and gives a complete overview.
