It was a very happy Christmas for Irish supermarkets with shoppers spending at levels not seen since the panic buying recorded as Ireland went into lockdown in March 2020. according to the latest raft of data from retail analysts Kantar Worldpanel.
Unsurprisingly sales of alcohol jumped sharply although the popularity of non-alcoholic alternatives was also recorded in the research.
The value of sales over the four weeks to December 29th increased by 4.4 per cent to reach nearly €1.4 billion, making it the biggest sales month of the year, despite grocery price inflation increasing by 3.6 per cent.
Shoppers also returned to stores more often making 23 trips on average to pick up Christmas essentials and luxuries, compared to 17 trips on average in Great Britain.
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“December was the busiest trading month we have seen – not just this year, but since the pre-lockdown rush in March 2020,” said Kantar’s business development director Emer Healy.
“As anticipated, Monday December 23rd was the most popular shopping day of the year, with consumers spending €107 million on that one day alone, €11.9 million more than the highest trading day last year.”
Ms Healy noted that in “typical festive spirit” many shoppers sought out treats with retailers rolling out arrange of seasonal offerings to tempt people to spend money.
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According to Kantar, shoppers were willing to spend slightly more than usual with sales of branded products up 5.9 per cent.
Meanwhile, premium own label lines saw a sharp increase of 10.5 per cent, surpassing the overall growth of own label products, which stood at 3.2 per cent.
Over the latest 12 weeks, shoppers spent nearly €140 million on premium own label ranges.
Sales on promotion hit a high of 23.8 per cent in December, growing 5.2 per cent with beer, cider, pastries and biscuits seeing the highest levels of buying on deal.
“Alcohol took centre stage in this year’s festive shopping carts, with shoppers spending an additional €79 million on alcohol versus the previous month,” Ms Healy said.
She also pointed to the popularity of non-alcoholic or low alcohol alternatives with one in 10 households opting for the more sober options spending an additional €2 million on these products.
Dunnes holds 24.8 per cent market share, with sales growth of 6.9 per cent year-on-year. Tesco holds 24.2 per cent of the market, with value growth of 6.4 cent year-on-year while SuperValu was on 20.5 per cent up 3.2 per cent.
When it comes to the German discounters, Lidl holds a 12.3 per cent share of total spending with growth of 4.6 per cent.
For its part, Aldi had a market share of 10.6 per cent a bounce of 3.9 per cent versus last year.
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