Todd Hale, senior vice president, ACNielsen U.S., said, "... as a channel, consumers are shifting their trips to formats where they can either save more money or accomplish more of their shopping in one trip."
Dollar stores have enjoyed the strongest long-term growth in household penetration--driven by the channel's rapid expansion--while supercenters have grown the most in terms of shopping trips. The traditional mass merchandise channel continued its losses in both household penetration and shopping frequency in 2004, as more mass merchandisers either converted traditional stores to supercenters or closed poor performing stores. Shopping frequency in warehouse club stores, drug stores, and convenience stores remained flat. Both drug stores and convenience stores slipped slightly in terms of household penetration.
Household Penetration(%) | Trips Per Year | |||||||
2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | |
Grocery | 100% | 100 | 100 | 99 | 75 | 73 | 72 | 69 |
Mass Merchandise | 93 | 91 | 91 | 89 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 |
Drug | 86 | 86 | 85 | 84 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 |
Supercenter | 53 | 55 | 54 | 54 | 18 | 21 | 25 | 27 |
Dollar | 59 | 62 | 66 | 67 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 13 |
Warehouse | 50 | 52 | 51 | 51 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 11 |
Convenience/Gas | 45 | 46 | 45 | 44 | 15 | 14 | 15 | 15 |
According to Hale: "One hopeful sign for the grocery channel is that several chains have rolled out or are experimenting with new store formats. Others are increasing their use of micro-merchandising and marketing to better meet the unique needs of shoppers within their trade areas. Only time will tell, but those efforts toward differentiation may help stem the loss of shoppers to other formats."
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