French household spend was up by 3.9% in September, a lower increase than in recent months, while e-commerce continues to gain market share, rising by 1.7 percentage points.
According to Kantar data for the P10 period (7 September to 4 October), average basket spend was up 8.6%, while traffic fell by 4.3% – a similar pattern to recent months.
Online grocery attracted 1.13 million additional customers, however, amidst a stepping up of restrictive measures to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Last Friday, a 9pm to 6am curfew was introduced in the Paris region and eight other large metropolitan areas across France, which while not reflected in the P10 data, may well influence shopping habits over the coming weeks.
Retailer Performance
In terms of the best-performing supermarkets in the period, market leader E.Leclerc saw its market sales rise by 0.3 percentage points to put it on 21.9%.
Another group that is 'progressing strongly', according to Kantar, is Le Groupement U, which saw a 0.6 percentage point rise to 11.1% market share in the P10 period.
Discounter Lidl, meanwhile, is continuing its good performance of recent months, seeing a 0.5 percentage point increase in share, to 6.3%.
According to Kantar, Lidl gained 350,000 customers in the P10 period, while traffic increased by 4.9%. Lidl is also working hard to improve its loyalty standing among shoppers, with marketing messages about 'value' and 'choice' being well received.
Groupement Les Mousquetaires posted the third strongest increase in market share in the period, seeing an increase of 0.4 percentage points to 15.8%.
Carrefour, meanwhile, saw a marginal (0.1 percentage points, to 20.0%) decline in performance, including a 0.2 point drop for its hypermarkets.
Auchan, too, lost ground, seeing a 0.4 point drop at a group level (and -0.5 points for its hypermarkets).
Arguably the weakest performer in the period was Groupe Casino, which saw its market share fall by 1.2 percentage points, impacted by a drop off at both Leader Price (-0.6 points) and Géant (-0.3 points).
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
