‘Shopping needs to be fun’

Grocery retail in Austria is much more concentrated than in Hungary: in Hungary there are 18,700 grocery stores for 10 million people, while in Austria 5,600 stores serve 8.5 million people.

This means that in Hungary there 19 stores for every 10,000 people, while in Austria there are 7 stores for 10,000 consumers. German company Rewe is the biggest retailer, with 1,884 stores in four channels: they have Merkur hypermarkets, Billa supermarkets, Penny Market discount stores and the private retailers of the Sutterlüty and Adeg chains. Spar has 1,450 stores (hyper- and supermarkets and franchises stores). Grocery turnover valued at EUR 18.7 billion last year, sales were up 3.1 percent and prices rose 1.8 percent. Austrian consumers visit 4.2 stores per month on average – Hungarians go to 3.5 stores a month. Store choice factors differ significantly in the two countries as in Hungary the most important criteria are related to convenience – e.g. ‘I can always buy what I need’, but in Austria consumers say that first and foremost ‘shopping needs to be fun’. 93 percent of Austrians sense rising prices and they react to this by paying more attention to promotions. It is noteworthy that the consumer confidence index dropped 2 points in Q2 2014 from the level of the first quarter. However, the 85 points is still higher than the 79-point European average. From the index’s three components willingness to purchase suffered the most, the ratio reducing from 36 to 32 percent of consumers.