Low-price products and money off deals are an important tactic in the retail ‘war’ to appeal to consumers, but for the vast majority of consumers the price of a product is of significantly less importance than other key indicators.
The new findings, from Kantar Media, reveals seven mutually exclusive groups of British consumers; each built around their key grocery shopping traits – and reveals that factors other than price savings are of significantly greater importance to more than three-quarters of these consumers.
Accounting for around 24% of all consumers, the two archetypes for whom price and savings are the crucial drivers, according to the data, are: Promiscuous Purchasers and Strategic Savers. These account for 8% and 16% of shoppers respectively.
The remaining 76% of consumers include various other defined consumer groups, all of considerable size, but whose shopping habits are motivated by very different factors such as the quality of produce, convenience, or ethical considerations.
Around 20% of all consumers defy categorisation of their motivations altogether, say the researchers.
“Whilst all supermarkets will count consumers from each of the shopper archetypes among their customers to a greater or lesser extent, our insights show that a focus on driving down prices is only likely to achieve real engagement amongst a modest proportion of consumers,” said Richard Poustie, chief operating officer for Kantar Media TGI.
“All the while, this approach may alienate consumers from other potentially lucrative archetypes.”
Key categories
Desire for quality products represents a particularly prominent driver in grocery shopping, said the Kantar Media report, noting that the Quality Crusaders archetype accounts for 14% of all Bristish shoppers (around 4.5 million individuals).
Their value to retailers and manufactures is demonstrated by the fact they are over 40% more likely than the average shopper to spend over £90 a week on a shopping trip – whereas those driven by price and value are no more likely than the average to do so.
Also among those for whom price is a secondary consideration are the Conscious Connoisseurs archetypes, the report says. This group includes 1.6 million British shoppers.
“Price will always be a very important driver in grocery shopping decisions and has some influence on every shopper,” said Poustie. “However, our new shopper archetypes reveal that factors like convenience and quality are even more important to huge proportions of shoppers.”
“If marketers can be more canny about targeting different kinds of shoppers with a focus tailored to what drives their grocery shopping, then they stand to make real gains over their rivals.”