Consumer shopping in Britain has changed dramatically over the last fifty years in terms of habits and shopping trends.

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Introduction

Consumer shopping in Britain has changed dramatically over the last fifty years in terms of habits and shopping trends.  Prior to the 1960’s consumers would have needed to shop everyday, visiting a number of small different shops, such as bakers, butchers and so on, to buy the necessary ingredients for a day’s meal.

However in the last two decades this shopping pattern has change dramatically.  This is due to a number of different factors, namely: The increase in the proportion of women working, the ability to store food longer, the growth of fridge and freezer capacity and the dramatic increase in car ownership.  The single biggest influence, however, has been the growth of the multiple grocers such as supermarkets and out of town superstores in the last 5 to 10 years.

Table 1: Number of shopping trips per week

FREQUENCY OF SHOPPINGNumber of shopping trips per household per week

 Source: Superpanel 

This has shifted the concentration of grocery retailing to become the domain of the larger food retailers, such as Sainsbury's, Tesco, Safeway and ASDA.  The buying power of these stores has allowed them to offer very low prices on a whole range of goods that directly competes with that provided by the food discount retailers.  Related to this in particular is the Kwik-Save No-Frills brand which has become less competitive as compared to products such as Tesco Value and Safeway Savers which have become relatively cheaper.  Similarly, superstores, with their ever-widening range of purchases, have become convenient one-stop outlets for groceries, personal care products, electrical goods, music and books.  These superstores also provide additional facilities such as free parking and on-site petrol stations as well as additional benefits to the customer such as customer loyalty cards.  

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Kwik-Save was taken over by the Somerfield Group after a series of complex mergers in March 1988.  The Somerfield Group is the fifth largest food retailer in the UK.  The group has approximately 1450 stores (650 Somerfield and 800 Kwik-Save), making it Britain’s largest supermarket in terms of the number of stores that it holds.  However regardless of the fact that Tesco were outnumbered in terms of outlets, Tesco’s sales in1998 at £21bn were five times bigger than Somerfield’s.  The Somerfield group, by their own admission, took their eye off the ball and allowed their competitive edge to decline ...

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