Supermarkets buck the trend

 

Old supermarket adverts

As the Supermarkets go from strength to strength will this have an effect on the downturn. As the supermarket go on a big employment drive will this take the sting out of the recession.

But this growth in the supermarkets  will have a down side,  if the supermarkets continue to open new stores (small and large) then the smaller local produce shops will disappear even more than ever.

Farm shop launches price war on Tesco

Pablo Dimoglou (Pic:Masons)

A humble farm shop with just three members of staff is waging a successful price war against mighty Tesco.

Owner Pablo Dimoglou does a daily price check on the superstore and undercuts it by as much as 50 per cent on some products.

He is currently selling broccoli at £1.20 a kilo, while at the nearest Tesco shop three miles away it costs £1.68.

Cucumbers sell for 69p as opposed to £1, and at 15p each lemons are half the price of their Tesco equivalents.

Pablo has distributed 2,500 leaflets throughout the area advertising discounts at his Yaxham Waters Farm Shop, in Yaxham, near Dereham, Norfolk. Each carries the proud boast “Cheaper than Tesco”.

He has seen business boom and customer numbers treble since slashing prices in the run up to Christmas.

Pablo said his campaign proves that small stores are not necessarily more expensive and can still offer bargains to shoppers.

The dad of two added: “It is ingrained in the British psyche that supermarkets are cheaper and small shops are really expensive.

“We are showing that is not necessarily the case.”

Former property developer Pablo opened the farm shop in August 2008 with his business partner Timothy Hay. Initially they found it difficult to attract custom.

Scared off by high prices and limited choice, shoppers preferred to go to Tesco in Dereham.

Pablo said: “Business was very slow to start with and we decided we had too high a profit margin on our produce. We were not serving our customers who are on tight budgets.”

After checking his figures Pablo realised many items in the shop could be heavily discounted – and trade suddenly started to soar.

The shop concentrates on selling fresh farm produce as well as handy basics such as kitchen roll and washing-up liquid.

Pablo also provides a free delivery service for larger orders within a seven-mile radius on a Monday afternoon – and will deliver further a field for elderly and infirm shoppers.

Tesco said: “It is good to have healthy competition in the area. Clearly the winners here will be the customers.”

YAXHAM SHOP

STAFF: 3

STORES: 1

Turnover: £120k

TESCO

STAFF: 440,000

STORES: 3,956

Turnover: £51.8bn

full article sourced from The Mirror

As all the supermarkets release higher than expected Christmas sales.

Morrisons’ Christmas cracker leaves rivals trailing

WM MORRISON will emerge as the best-performing supermarket chain over the festive period when it unveils a bumper 7%-8% rise for Christmas sales in a trading update this week.

The Bradford-based chain is tipped to release like-for-like sales figures at the top end of City forecasts, trumping the growth recorded by rivals J Sainsbury, Tesco and Asda.

Tesco’s like-for-like sales excluding petrol increased only 2.5% in the six weeks to January 3 — its lowest rise in Christmas sales since 1993.

Sainsbury reported its best trading figures over the period, with like-for-like sales up a better-than-expected 4.5% in the 13 weeks to January 3. Asda did not release detailed Christmas figures, but hinted its growth would pass 6.9%.

sourced from The Observer read full article

 

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Sainsbury’s says it has had its “best ever Christmas performance”, with sales rising 4.5% in the past three months.

Chief executive Justin King said sales of the store’s economy range had risen by 40%, but that top-quality items were still selling. 

sourced from The BBC

New shoppers push Morrisons sales

Morrisons is outperforming many of its rivals

Supermarket chain Morrisons has seen its sales rise and says more than 700,000 new shoppers are visiting its stores each week.

The store said like-for-like sales, excluding new stores and fuel, rose 8.1% in the 13 weeks to 2 November.

Chief executive Marc Bolland said more shopper were choosing Morrisons in the “challenging economic environment”.

Morrisons also said it had agreed to buy 38 stores from the Co-operative Group for £223m ($328m).

In a statement Morrison said “the economic environment is difficult and will remain challenging,” but said that its financial expectations for the current year remained unchanged.

sourced from The BBC read full article

Tesco’s Christmas sales figures due

Retail giant Tesco – due to issue an update on its Christmas trading – is set to be the weakest performer of the UK’s “big four” supermarkets.

Tesco’s September launch of its discount range to combat the challenge of cheaper rivals such as Aldi and Lidl saw its like-for-like sales growth slow to 2% in the quarter to November 22.

Although about 300,000 more customers were tempted into Tesco each week by the new ranges, the firm estimated the reductions knocked between two and three percentage points off its sales growth.

In contrast Sainsbury’s said it enjoyed its best-ever festive season, with more than 22 million customers and like-for-like sales growth of 4.5%.

sourced from The Mirror read full article

Christmas cheer at Morrison provides a glimmer of light for troubled sector

Wm Morrison, the Bradford-based supermarket, will this week say that Christmas sales rose by just over 8pc, trouncing the recent performances of rivals Tesco and J Sainsbury

Morrisons’ growth over the six weeks to January 4 – measured on a like-for-like basis and excluding petrol sales – compares to 4.5pc reported at Sainsbury’s and 3.5pc seen at Tesco, although all the chains report for slightly different periods.

The strong performance comes days after Morrisons was shown to have made significant market share gains over the last quarter.

A new survey to be released this week will estimate that 1,600 retailers will fail in 2009, 20pc more than failed in 2008. The projected figure from Experian, the data company, compares to 1,331 failures in 2008 and 1,113 failures in 2007.

“The first quarter of 2009 is expected to be especially challenging for retailers. We expect the combination of lower consumer demand and higher supplier costs, driven by sterling weakness, to place further pressure on margins,” Experian will say in its report, The Future of the High Street.

According to the report, Scotland and the North-West of England showed the worst year-on-year decline in retail visits in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to the year before.

The number of shoppers in these areas fell by over 6pc in the fourth quarter, while the number of shoppers in London and the South-East fell by just over 1pc.

The strong Morrisons figures will be another feather in the cap for Marc Bolland, the chain’s chief executive.

He is likely to tell the City that Morrisons has been performing particularly well in the south of England. It is thought that the retailer’s margins have been slightly impacted by discounting in the run-up to Christmas.

However Mr Bolland will say that profit for the current financial year is likely to be in line with forecasts.

full article sourced from The Telegraph