A forecast by IGD has predicted that the supermarkets will jnot see much more luck over the next five years, and will suffer another drop in sales of 2.9 per cent.
Between now and 2020, it is predicted that the big four stores, Tesco, Morrisons, Asda and Sainsbury’s will continue to see dropping interest, as they have already experienced for the last year. With a price war, it was hoped that the superstores would scrape some of the market share back together, but this doesn’t seem to have been the case.
These big retailers have had a lot of bad press in the last 12 months, what with many members of management being fired as well as accounting scandals.
This predicted drop in sales of almost 3 per cent is strident compared to the growth expected in the discount stores, especially Aldi and Lidl, and online.
Discount stores are thought to see an 82.2 per cent, just beaten by online stores which can hope to see a growth of 92.2 per cent.
The price of shares in the big four supermarkets have fallen to reflect the seeming impossible task of turning around their profit slumps. Shares across the stores have fallen by almost 20 per cent.
This is despite recent victories which indicated that the stores may have been getting things back on track. For example, Morrisons have reportedly experienced their first rise in sales since December 2013, but it is not surprising that investors have lost faith and are looking elsewhere.
Of course, predictions can be wrong, we will have to see how the future of the stores, which have so long held sway over our grocery buying, develops.
