72 per cent of shoppers believe local shops should play an important role as part of the community, a survey has claimed.
It‘s now essential that retailers‘ convenience stores don‘t lose sight of staying in touch with the local community if they want to build genuine loyalty among their shoppers, says the survey from Savvy Marketing.
Shoppers see their local store as second only to the local school in its importance as part of the local neighbourhood, it said.
The survey, of 1000 household decision makers, examined trends in shopper use of – and attitudes towards convenience stores – which are seeing a surge in popularity with the big four supermarkets.
“We fully expect the convenience sector to continue to grow rapidly over the next 5-10 years – mainly thanks to huge initiatives by the big four, and efforts of symbol groups, to improve prices and tailor convenience focused marketing,” said Alastair Lockhart, Head of Insight at Savvy Marketing.
The survey found that only a third of shoppers rate their local convenience store as good or very good when it comes to price, and 77 per cent said lower prices would encourage them to visit their local convenience store more often.
“Convenience store pricing presents retailers with significant challenges. The cost of servicing a convenience store is proportionally higher than a superstore due to their lack of efficiencies of scale and, in most cases, some of this cost has to be passed on to shoppers,” said Mr Lockhart.
“But with less than one-third of shoppers prepared to pay a small premium to shop at a convenience store close to their home, retailers need to look to innovative ways to justify the premium they charge.”
Download the free IGD report to find out how Tesco is evolving its convenience sector in London.
