Irish shoppers spent an extra €90m on groceries over the festive period according to the latest grocery market share figures from Kantar Worldpanel, published for the 12 weeks ending 31 December 2017. The figures reveal that Irish shoppers spent a record €1,532 on groceries - an increase of €38 compared to the previous year. This was mostly driven by grocery staples where fruit, vegetables, meat and poultry accounted for a combined €28m.
Dunnes Stores remained the number one supermarket in the Republic of Ireland. The Irish owned grocer achieved a market share of 23%, up 0.3% on 2016. Commenting on Tesco’s performance, David Berry, director at Kantar Worldpanel, noted how Ireland’s second largest retailer, “also performed strongly, achieving its highest sales growth since February 2011, up 5.8%. SuperValu clocked in sales growth of 2%.”
Discounters Lidl and Aldi also performed well over the Christmas period. Lidl grew its sales by 4.8% raising its market share to 10.4%. Aldi sales were up 0.9%.
As online grocery offerings improve and shopper habits change, more and more shoppers are beginning to buy their groceries online. The latest Kantar Media study reports a 53% rise in the number of regular online grocery shoppers since 2016. This was clearly evident during the Christmas period where online grocery sales grew by an impressive 24%, leading to a record breaking market share of 2.3%.
While this news is welcomed by the grocery sector, the Irish retail landscape remains fiercely competitive making it more important than ever to be able to reach impressionable shoppers at the right time and place. 85% of Irish grocery shoppers spend time out of home every day. This cohort are very inclined to seeing outdoor media with 1.9 million grocery shoppers having seen an outdoor campaign in the past week. Researching a product on a mobile phone and making a purchase at the store are the two most popular responses made by grocery shoppers to an outdoor campaign.
Looking at Nielsen ad spend figures for November, it seems that these insights have not been missed by media planners when planning campaigns for the grocery sector. Retail was the number one category for outdoor ad spend, up by an impressive 41% yoy. Lidl, Tesco and Dunnes Stores featured in the
top 5 with Lidl taking top spot. These 3 alone accounted for 31% of the overall category spend.
Outdoor has long been hailed as the ultimate brand builder. It is highly visible, can be seen multiple times a day with an unrivalled on-street presence. It will continue to evolve as a strong medium that is consumed while on the move, reaching consumers as they go about their day, enabling more meaningful connections with big brands.
For information please contact marketing@jcdecaux.ie