Over 50% of products in Morrisons’ recent wave of price cuts are now cheaper than items listed in Asda’s rollback campaign earlier this month.
This is according to analysts at Edge by Ascential’s e-commerce analytics SaaS platform, Digital Shelf, who looked into the categories and products included in the Morrisons’ price cuts. It was found that as of 7 September, there were 376 price cuts across the grocery, home care, beers, wines and spirits and health & beauty categories, with an average reduction of 21.4%.
Analysts at Edge Digital Shelf found that of the 376 products that Morrisons cut, 29 were also included in the recent Asda rollback, 17 of which were cheaper than Asda, with five price matches. Moreover, a large proportion of the lower prices came from branded items. Some 12 products, including John West Tinned Tuna, 500g jars of Dolmio cooking sauce and PG Tips tea bags were cheaper at Morrisons.
| Total | Branded | Own Label | |
| Cheaper than Asda | 17 | 12 | 5 |
| Price Match | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| More expensive than Asda | 7 | 4 | 3 |
In terms of Morrisons’ overall price cuts, Edge Digital Shelf data showed that 81% of the cuts were on its own label items, with only 20% of cuts on branded items. Within grocery, ambient goods – shelf stable items such as canned, jarred and packet products – made up just over two-thirds of the price cuts. Almost all of the branded price cuts were in this category, while chilled foods were entirely made up of own label price cuts.
The analysis found that the average price reduction in Morrisons on branded items (26.9%) was greater than that of its own label products (20%). Within grocery, most cuts on branded products were in the cooking sauces category, all 16 of these on Dolmio products, with a 750g jar of Dolmio sauce now reduced in price by 27.5%, while its 500g jars were reduced by 45%. Moreover, in the cold drinks category, eight of the 11 cuts were on Tropicana products, which experienced a 36.4% price reduction.
Chris Elliott, Digital Shelf analyst at Edge by Ascential, commented: “Following the economic challenges resulting from the pandemic, consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about the price of their weekly shop and looking to cut costs wherever possible. Morrisons is the latest of the leading supermarkets to announce a huge overhaul in pricing and is certainly big competition for the likes of Asda, which announced it was rolling back the price of thousands of products earlier this month.
“Morrisons has been one of the highest performers of the lockdown period, so its price cuts could very well continue to lure more shoppers. With cuts across multiple categories, it has an attractive proposition against its competitors, and it would be interesting to see how they respond in the coming weeks and months leading to the busy seasonal shopping period.”
NAM Implications:
- Two drivers of future cuts by Asda and Morrisons:
- Consumer fear/caution
- Asda’ new owners wanting to grow at the expense of other mults and the discounters.
- Along with super-savvy consumers’ ability to compare like-with-like as never before…
