Food prices
Supermarket customers buy even more special offers
Because the prices of many foods have increased, consumers use discounts more often. This shows a YouGov study. Traders and manufacturers bring this into a difficult situation.
Special offers are becoming increasingly popular with customers in Germany. The proportion of sales that dealers made with promotions has increased by 44 percent between 2020 and 2024. Almost a quarter of the proceeds were recently eliminated, almost a third in branded products. This emerges from the “Consumer Index” of the market research company YouGov.
A flattening of the dynamics is not in sight, yougov trading expert Robert Kecskes writes in the study. “The fight for the area of shoppers and shopping frequencies is too intense.” The current promotion of savings options by using the dealer apps tend to strengthen the development.
From the expert’s point of view, it is hardly possible for manufacturers and dealers to get out of the “promotional spiral”. The share of sales with articles that are sold in the special offer is too great. According to Kecskes, this leads to a dilemma for companies. If the proportion continues, dealers and manufacturers hardly advance this when it comes to sales and the amount sold. If you drive back the actions, however, you would have to expect considerable losses.
“Promotions are omnipresent today”
According to the market researchers, the discount campaigns of the customers are obviously not sustainable. According to YouGov, many brands are not bought permanently, but only as long as they are on the special offer. Afterwards, consumers often returned to them. With the normal shelf price, the differentiating to the competitive brands would be lost.
Even better -positioned customers who are not actively paying attention to special offers and are not financially dependent on the cheapest prices recently used special offers, according to Kecskes. “Promotions are now omnipresent and therefore without a large search accessible to all shoppers, even for those who would of course buy at the shelf price if they were not encountered everywhere without being asked.”
Special offers are getting worse
Customers have recently paid particular attention to discounts due to the increased food prices. However, special offers were also affected by price increases, as an evaluation of the price comparison portal SMHaggle shows.
The result: The prices of many articles have risen by 20 to 50 percent since 2022, and even more. The campaign prices of branded products, including filter coffee from Jacobs or Melitta, chocolate from Milka or Ritter Sport, deospray from Dove or Pringles Chips were compared.
In many cases, the offers have become more unattractive, says Smhaggle managing director Sven Reuter. “In 2025, foods will also be more expensive on a broad front. New price increases are often initiated with worse offers.”
dpa
Source: Stern
