More people are shopping online or buying from their local grocer. Should the big stores be worried? I have a hunch that they should
As I write, Tesco shares are still in freefall following the profit warning the company issued at the end of last month. The supermarket chains new chief executive, Dave Lewis, has been installed, but he has also cheerily declared: I have never run a shop in my life. (He comes to Tesco from Unilever, and thus knows more about deodorants than Bogofs.) Meanwhile, there is much moderately frantic comment about Tescos market share a mere 28% of the UK grocery market with some suggesting that this is simply a geographical anomaly (Tesco, being everywhere, cannot expand any more; its rivals Asda and Aldi will start to decline, too, once theyve galloped across more of the map), and others noting supermarkets now have no choice but to adapt to our shopping habits, to the fact that, increasingly, consumers use a home delivery service for the bulk of their haul, and smaller, local shops for the rest.
The last explanation is pleasing to my ears, but I also think it happens to be right. My strong hunch is that, while Tesco is the first to feel the effect of this shift, it wont be the last. Our relationship with supermarkets really is undergoing a sea change, the sort of thing we havent seen since Fine Fare disappeared and the vast out-of-town stores began appearing on our ring roads like JG Ballard stories brought sickeningly to life. This isnt about data. I have no facts and figures. I can just feel it, and I bet you can, too. You know it from your own experience. You see it whenever you walk out of the door. At the top end of the market, people who can afford to care about food are choosing, where possible, to use their local butchers and bakers. At the bottom end, consumers are beginning to see through the old lie that supermarkets are always cheaper (my greengrocer beats the prices at Sainsburys every time, which is why theres always a queue).
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