Retail report shows significant sales growth for Dunnes
Dunnes Stores enjoyed its best sales growth figures for four years recently, according to figures released today.
The Kantar Worldpanel in Ireland report shows that the retailer saw 4.6% sales growth for the 12 weeks ending January 20, 2013.
David Berry, commercial director at Kantar Worldpanel, said: "[This] is Dunnes’ strongest performance for four years and highlights the success of the ‘Shop and Save’ campaign launched in the run up to Christmas.
"Shoppers have responded well to this offer, picking up more items every time they shop and increasing the average size of their baskets by almost €3 to €36.70 – an increase of 9%.
"This has opened a considerable gap between Dunnes and its competition, with the average Tesco and SuperValu shop standing at €30.40 and €22.40 respectively.
"Its consistent performance also stands out, with strong sales across a range of grocery aisles including fresh produce, alcohol, soft drinks, crisps and also chilled convenience food.
The same report showed a slight decrease in sales growth and market share for Tesco.
"Tesco has seen its share of the grocery market dip by half a percentage point this year, moving from 28.1% to 27.6%," said Mr Berry.
"Its sales growth has also declined by 1%. This is the first time Tesco has dropped behind grocery market growth since October 2009, demonstrating the success of the retailer up until now.
"One opportunity for it to get back on track is to build on the increasing number of trips to its stores which we have seen in recent months and get customers spending more.”
Aldi continues to set the pace as the retailer enjoys the strongest level of growth, albeit slightly below its previous rate of 30%.
Grocery inflation stands at 5.2% for the 12 week period ending January 20, 2013, according to the report, ahead of the 5% in the previous period and the highest since the 5.6% seen in May 2011.
This figure is based on over 30,000 identical products compared year-on-year in the proportions purchased by Irish shoppers and therefore represents the most authoritative figure currently available.
It is a ‘pure’ inflation measure in that shopping behaviour is held constant between the two comparison periods – shoppers are likely to achieve a lower personal inflation rate if they trade down or seek out more offers.
