Shoppers have apparently “lost trust” in the pricing in the main supermarkets up and down the country according to Andy Higginson, who has moved onto the board of Morrisons.
Speaking at the market sector’s IGD conference, Mr Higginson pointed out that the supermarkets are facing extraordinary times, and that “talking to each other, not their customers” has led them to misjudge how people want to shop.
The rise of internet shopping has made an impact on the income of the big four stores: Sainsburys, Morrisons, Asda and Tesco, and the need for people to tighten purse strings just was not addressed by these stores quick enough.
This led to the discounters gaining ground and sales rates falling for the bigger stores, with Tesco experiencing falls in profit at the fastest rate for 40 years.
“The dialogue with customer has not been honest,” Mr Higginson said. “customers have lost trust in supermarket pricing.”
This is likely to be true, considering all the dishonest deals that were reported on this year.
Asda, consequentially, is said to have been able to make back sales, by focusing on keeping prices low and having less emphasis on deals.
The discount stores have done this from the start, keeping prices low in order to attract custom, and when people had to be thrifty with their cash, they turned to the discounters for consistently low prices, something the big stores did not offer and they suffered for it.
