UK Retail Digest

An influx of news in the UK retail sector. NOPWorld has today announced the winning of a contract for mystery shopping for Kwik Save supermarkets, and ESA has this week retained its mystery shopping contract for Tesco Ireland. Meanwhile MINTEL reports Britain's tea-drinking on the wane and IGD says convenience store takings are set to grow.

MINTEL's report, nattily entitled 'Tea' and already widely reported in the UK press, suggested that 'sales of more traditional tea products, such as the standard tea bag and loose tea, are taking a real battering'. Over the past 2 years, sales of standard tea bags have declined by 16% while sales of loose tea have declined 9%. Standard tea bags make up 63% of the total tea market and are often discounted, contributing to a 12% decline in the total tea market from £707m in 1999 to just £623m in 2004.

Ellen Shiels, Senior Market Analyst at MINTEL, says the 'traditional English cuppa' has many competitors old and new, including coffee, soft drinks, bottled water and fruit juice, but is also competing with more exotic and healthier herbal tea options. 'There is a need by manufacturers to make traditional tea more of a fashionable beverage'. In contrast, speciality teas and herbal & fruit teas have been the shining stars, rising by as much as 50% and 30% respectively between 2002 and 2004. Tea companies have already responded by saying that actually the traditional product's market share has held up pretty well over the past decade and more in the face of all this new competition, and hopefully will take no notice whatsoever. Trendy tea? No Thank You, mine's a PG with milk and sugar - Ed.

Almost 80% of British are tea drinkers, including a very healthy 72% of those aged between 15 and 24. Over half of adults claim that they always buy the same brand of tea (55%) and some 32% of adults tend to drink tea throughout the day. MINTEL is online at www.mintel.com .

IGD's research says that 20% of consumers' food and grocery spend goes to convenience stores. The market is now worth £23.9bn, up 5% on 2004, and is outperforming the total grocery market which grew by 4.2% in the same period. 52% of shoppers visit a convenience store between two and four times each week and IGD predicts strong growth to £32bn by 2010.

Among the trends reported are particularly good performance by co-operatives (up 15%) and Convenience Multiples (18%), fuelled in part by store acquisitions; a growth in numbers entering a Symbol operation in the past year - ie joining a group such as SPAR or Costcutter; and the continuing decline of Independents - by 5% in value and 7% in store numbers. However, the remaining independents 'represent a hard core of the most able and dedicated that performed above the rate of inflation' according to IGD, which expects them to continue to remain the most common providers of convenience retailing for some time to come, making up 46% of stores and 27% of sales in five years time.

Chief Exec Joanne Denney-Finch says consumers are demanding local convenience shopping, and she believes 'the development of new types of convenience stores across the UK will ... actually generate extra demand for convenience rather than merely fulfilling demand which is already present'.

Retail and trade research specialist ESA retained the Tesco Ireland mystery shopping contract for a fifth consecutive year, and will carry out a mix of traditional mystery shopping and its customer and competitor 'Question Time' forums. Tesco Ireland's Customer Operations Manager Patricia Moroney says 'Service is at the forefront of this culture and ESA's vast expertise in this area, coupled with their innovative approach to research, has provided us with relevant, meaningful findings from day one'. ESA's mystery shoppers will visit 89 Tesco stores across Ireland on a regular basis throughout the year.

Jamie Thorpe, ESA's Client Service Director described the Irish retail marketplace as 'incredibly competitive' and said that 'The use of multiple research methodologies to gain a clearer picture of what its customers want has enabled Tesco to grow year on year'. ESA is part of the SHS Group and has grown its turnover by around 48% in two years. It is online at www.esa.co.uk

NOP World's Mystery Shopping division has won a competitive pitch to conduct the customer service programme for high street food retailer Kwik Save, involving more than 2,000 mystery shops each year to every one of Kwik Save's 500 plus UK stores.

Kerry Stagg, Consumer Insight Manager at Kwik Save said NOP World offered an efficient service 'facilitated by their impressive Cyber Shop system, combined with an emphasis on quality of fieldwork'. The agency is online at www.nopworld.com

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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