The majority (77.9%) of Irish shoppers have not started their Christmas grocery shopping yet, according to the CPM Christmas Grocery Shopping Survey 2013. Of a total of 127 participants from across Ireland, the majority (58.2%) surveyed, consider themselves the main decision maker when it comes to grocery shopping.
The survey shows that most shoppers (27.4%) wait until two weeks before Christmas to start the grocery shopping, while 22.6% leave it until one week before, and 21% leave it until three weeks before, emphasising that the last three weeks are the most important for retailers.
When asked which stores they intend to complete their Christmas grocery shop in, it was a close call between Dunnnes (43.5%) and Tescos (46%). SuperValu was the next preference with 23.4%, while the discounters featured well too, Aldi at 26.6% and Lidl at 18.5%. The vast majority (90.3%) of respondents said that they will shop in a grocery store, as opposed to on-line, with just 8.9% planning to do both.
However, shoppers are still willing to shop around for the best value option, as shown by 54.1% saying they would do so. 78.9% also said they will look out for special offer discounts when doing the Christmas food shop this year.
Interesting to note was the amount of people, 68.6% who said that they bought groceries for Christmas in advance, and then ended up using them beforehand, thus having to buy them again. Retailers could take advantage of this, by using special promotional offers in the run up to Christmas. The survey shows that Christmas grocery spend will vary from €100-349 for the majority(72.2%), while 1.7% said they would spend over €650, and 2.6% saying they will spend less.
© 2013 - Checkout Magazine by Genna Patterson
