New research that aimed to gauge consumer attachment across the UK supermarket sector has found that convenience retailers in the country, such as Spar and Budgens, are failing to connect with shoppers over brand loyalty.
The TNS study showed that this lack of brand loyalty was leaving the groups vulnerable to major supermarkets opening 'local' stores and subsequently taking customers.
Some 2,300 people were asked eight questions to determine whether they were genuine fans of certain retailers, with questions focused on trust and enthusiasm towards a brand.
While high-end retailer Marks & Spencer came top, with 48 per cent of its customer based ranked as 'fans', Budgens was ranked bottom with a mere 4 per cent of regular customers classed as 'fans'.
In fact, the bottom places were dominated by convenience retailers such as Nisa, Londis and Spar.
'With the likes of Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Tesco and Asda pushing into the market with smaller versions, local convenience stores are looking quite vulnerable, because it does not look like they've got their customers tied into them,' said Simon Wood, TNS UK head of stakeholder management.
In order to survive, convenience store brands such as Budgens need tocarve out a niche for themselves in the market because they cannot compete on price or range, according to Wood.
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