Online Supermarkets on Top this Christmas

In a survey of over 1,600 grocery shoppers by Europinion in the UK in the run up to Christmas, online supermarkets topped the lists. Shoppers were asked where they shopped last and how satisfied they were with the supermarket. Over a half of online supermarket shoppers said they were extremely/very satisfied. This compares with less than 4 in 10 for Tesco, the country's biggest high street supermarket.

The particular reason given for doing the Christmas shopping online was its speed versus conventional shopping. Pete Comley, MD of Europinion who conducted the survey commented, 'In spite of the clear speed benefit of shopping online, comparatively few Internet users (just 4%) decided to do their main Christmas shop online this year. This still appears mainly due to inertia of people choosing to shop where they have always shopped before. It was not due to fear of buying online as our other surveys have shown a record 55% of Internet users bought something online this Christmas.'

Within the conventional supermarkets, Asda, Morrisons (and other smaller supermarkets such as Aldi), did particularly well. Pete Comley continued, 'Price has been a key motivator for supermarket satisfaction this Christmas. Asda shoppers rated it top of the league because of its cheaper prices. Morrisons did particularly well because of its special offers. Our surveys are continuing to show that people say they had less spare money this Christmas and supermarkets recognising this and offering steep price cuts are faring better.'

The data reported covers a survey of 1630 grocery shoppers interviewed between 20-23 December 2002. Fieldwork was conducted online using RAWI (RAndom Web Interviewing). Surveys were completed by a random sample of UK Internet users recruited from a variety of (non grocery) UK websites.

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

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