Most UK consumers are refusing to adapt and make wholesale changes in their grocery shopping despite the recession, new research has revealed.
UK shoppers are not abandoning consumerist lifestyles and grocery sales in the UK continue to show a slight increase as consumers prove unwilling to sacrifice quality, Datamonitor research has shown.
The research reveals that UK consumers are among the most sceptical in the world, with 90 per cent believing that the country is in recession, and a further 47 per cent experiencing a worsening personal financial situation between October 2008 and April 2009.
The primary influence in buying was “the overall quality of products sold”, demonstrating the “want-it-all” attitude of many consumers in the UK.
Only 36 per cent of respondents in the UK cited habit as being an important influence on where they shop for groceries, suggesting that store loyalty is not high.
Almost a third of consumers are changing where they do their grocery shopping in a bid to save money. Other popular approaches employed by UK consumers included using coupons to obtain discounts and being more disciplined by using a shopping list and not buying any additional items.
Daniel Bone, Datamonitor analyst and author of the report, said: “This provides opportunities for those industry players that can successfully find the ‘value sweet spot’, whereby the product or service meets or exceeds quality expectations, but at a price that is slightly less than expected. This applies to all sectors of consumer packaged goods.”
The research also revealed that while some brand loyalty could be seen among UK consumers, 43 per cent agreed that they had recently given up some of their favourite grocery brands.
Datamonitor research emphasised these attitudes among consumers - only 15 per cent advised that they ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ bought private label products, while 39 per cent could be classed as regular purchasers in this area.
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