French household expenditure rose by 8.8% in the period from 2 November to 29 November, as lockdown measures returned across the country, Kantar has said.
During the P12 period, the average basket size rose by 15%, while traffic is still trending downwards (-6%). The online channel continues to be the main winner, gaining 2.3 percentage points to account for 9.0% of the market.
Strong Performance
According to Kantar, Le Groupement Les Mousquetaires posted the strongest market share gain in the period (+0.9 percentage points), driven by an improvement in loyalty among customers at its Intermarché banner.
Discounter Lidl has also seen impressive growth in recent periods, with P12 seeing it gain 0.8 percentage points to put it on its highest ever market share of 7.3%. Rival Aldi, which recently announced a major deal to acquire Leader Price from Groupe Casino, rose by 0.1 percentage points.
Le Groupement U also continued to grow during the period (+0.5 percentage points) and achieved a market share value of 11.1%, while market leader E. Leclerc posted a 0.2 percentage point increase, mainly thanks to the strong performance of its E. Leclerc Online services.
Hypermarket operators found the going somewhat tougher, however, with Carrefour reporting a 0.4 percentage point decrease across its hypermarket estate, and Géant Casino also seeing a 0.4 percentage point decline.
Impacting Performance
According to Barclays European Food Retail Equity Research, 'Performances during this period have been impacted by the second lockdown and the ban on selling some non-food product categories, two elements that mainly weighed on the hypermarket format. Additionally, the period this year did not include Black Friday promotions, which traditionally represent a significant footfall driver for the hypermarkets.'
Barclays also noted that while E. Leclerc posted a positive sales gain overall, its physical stores dropped by 0.8 percentage points, which was offset by a 0.9 percentage point gain across its online channel – underlining the strength of the e-commerce channel during lockdown.
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
