Promotional levels at Morrisons are now just 16% below those seen in January and the highest since lockdown.
Analysts at Edge Price & Promo, part of retail insights firm Edge by Ascential, revealed that Morrisons increased its price reduction promotions by 24% in the last two weeks ending 31 May, across major categories including cereals, cheese and snacking. However, multibuy offers were not impacted.
Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s, which was one of the first retailers to increase its promotional levels at the beginning of May, has since reduced the number of promotions across multiple categories by 33% in the last week, reaching levels last seen at the start of April.
In a separate analysis, Edge Price & Promo also monitored the stock levels at UK supermarkets in the last two weeks ending 31 May. The data confirms that product availability – which had been disrupted by consumer stockpiling early in the coronavirus crisis – is now slowly trending upwards across all major supermarkets, with Morrisons seeing 3.5% rise in availability – the largest increase across the two weeks.
Tinned pasta (-6.9%) returned as the most unavailable product across the main supermarkets over the last two weeks. However, ice cream (-10.1%) saw the biggest increase in demand – a result of consumers looking to treat themselves following the warmer weather.
Meanwhile, frozen dough and pastry continued to improve (+1.8%) in availability across the last two weeks, but it remained the second most out of stock product, followed by health and vitamins (-3.3%).
Soap was one of the most unavailable categories and saw some of the biggest increase in demand, with availability falling by -6.1%. However, stock levels increased significantly for frozen breakfast (+10%), kitchen towels (+9%) and tinned meals (+8%).
Chris Elliott, Insight Manager at Edge by Ascential, said: “Now that lockdown is easing and consumers less concerned about stockpiling the necessities, supermarkets have been easing back into raising their promotional levels for some time. Morrisons, in particular, has seen this level rise over the last few weeks, which is a significant move for the retailer, which up until recently, has been struggling with inconsistent stock levels since Mid-March.
“Across all supermarkets, stock levels are on the rise, which also gives them more opportunities to focus on promoting categories that will do well as the weather gets warmer, this might include more summer-related food, as well as ice-cream which we’ve seen huge consumer demand for over the last few weeks.”
NAM Implications:
- Assuming that supply chains have now settled down…
- …then the mults, like most retailers (and businesses)…
- …realise that any growth will come at the expense of rivals.
- Then all the usual promo ‘rules’ apply…
