Retail and consumer goods industry news

In September, Alibaba’s supermarket chain, Freshippo, opened 30 new stores across China, averaging one store per day, amounting to 350 locations. Freshippo’s latest expansion developments The recent openings include 16 Freshippo Xiansheng supermarkets (meaning “fresh food” in Mandarin”), three Freshippo Mini stores, 9 Freshippo outlets and one Freshippo X club across China. In addition t...

Last week, we held our webinar exploring the third in our series of cost-of-living reports, all about price and promotions . If you missed the webinar you can watch it here . Here are the answers to the questions we didn’t get around to answering live: Pricing and promotional mechanics Do we believe there will be a rise in ‘online only’ promotion mechanics in the coming years? ...

With the ongoing cost-of-living crisis changing consumer behaviour across the nation, discounter Aldi has reported annual sales of £15.5 bn and promises to bring value to even more communities in the UK A quick look at the numbers Annual sales up 14% to £15.5 bn Operating profit up to £178.7m,  a margin of 1.2% Circa 1 million additional shoppers through the doors The switch ...

I visited Aldi Nord’s Shop & Go store in Utrecht, the Netherlands, where the discounter has upgraded its cashierless store concept. Testing the concept in a high footfall location The store was first opened in July 2022, in the centre of Utrecht, an ideal location for testing a cashierless store. IGD visited in December 2022 and produced a store visit report , highlighting the technology...

Biedronka has broken some records already this year including its sales in H1. However, its eyes are how it can dominate the Polish retailer landscape and be the leader in the region. Sales strong for reinvesting in new stores, tech and shoppers In the first half of 2023, its sales (in PLN) increased by 24% and l-f-l growth reached 20%. Sales in H1 amounted to EUR 10.316, compared to EUR ...

Convenience stores 7-Eleven and CU announced they have started selling seasonal products for winter since 17 September in light of the increasing sales of winter products driven by the widened daily temperature difference. Increased sales in hot beverages and morning hours Sales of hot drinks and high-calorie products experienced 50% growth compared to last year. Particularly, 7-Eleven’s ‘S...

The Italian retailer has upgraded its website as it continues to expand its online offering as it focuses on its omnichannel strategy  A new look and feel with improved user experience The user interface has been improved across all devices; the new website features clearer images and a new layout with improved navigation. With the new “Intelligent Search” function and personalised recommen...

Announcing its interim results for the first six months of 2023, Co-op has reported sales in its food retail division down by 8.9% to £3,563m. This was substantially the result of the disposal of its fuel forecourt estate of 129 sites in late 2022. Excluding this impact, underlying sales grew by 4%. Total group sales (including life and financial services) were also impacted by the disposal, fall...

Boots has dropped its plans to launch its own marketplace as it focuses on other initiatives, such as its dropship programme. Meanwhile, the retailer is rolling out shoppable social media ads as part of a new value campaign. Previous plans to launch a marketplace In 2022, Boots announced plans to launch an online marketplace to enable third-party brands of any size to list their products on...

Ocado's Q3 sales increased by 7.2% to £569.6m thanks to the Big Price Drop campaign. They cut prices on 500+ items, boosting weekly orders by 1.9% to 381,000. In the last month of the quarter, they saw positive volume growth and a 4.2% increase in average basket value. "Perfect deliveries" remained high as part of their Perfect Execution Programme. Despite an 8.4% rise in average selling price...