RetailZoom: Basket Values peeks in April for Domestic Chains

By: Trademagazin Date: 2020. 05. 18. 14:43

Last week we published that Local Chains have managed to grow their value sales in April by an average of 9%. This lags behind the growth intensity experienced in March and which is a clear indication that the customers are beginning to “calm down” as panic shopping deteriorates. But if anybody thinks the customer shopping patterns are beginning to look like as before the crisis commenced, they are in for a surprise. Overall basket values are still on the rise, surpassing even March figures.

Andreas Christou

Baskets over 10,000 Ft have taken an 8,4% share from the total number of transactions in Local Chains in March, contributing to a 36% value share from the Chains’ overall turnover. In April, these “high baskets” have taken an even bigger, nearly 10% share, with a value share of close to 50% (47,3%). This means that in April, these big-shopping customer transactions were accounting for half of all the revenue generated.

The average basket value of these big shopping transactions have also increased by 5,000 Ft (!), with the number of products placed in these baskets also increasing, by close to 20 items!

If we take a quick glance at the number of transactions in these shops, we will see that their overall number has fallen by 3% in April (vs 2019), but this is misleading, because the decrease is explained solely by the disappearance of the impulse baskets (below 1,000 Ft). Medium and High value baskets have surged by 68% comparing to last year. This very impressive increase is only partially explained by the customers continue to visit the shops only 1 or 2 times per week as opposed to before, as such there was a surge in convenience and top-up shopping.

The other ingredient of this is that the Local Chains – through their accessibility and proximity of their shops – have successfully gained new customers during the pandemic and so far have been doing a good job of preserving them and their contribution to the value growth.

These trend altogether have resulted in a 25% overall increase in average basket values with quantities per basket rising by 50% in April comparing to 2019. These high basket values have clearly indicated that customers are still preferring to do their shopping in one store, and we can also assume that some of these transactions are covering the needs of more than one households.

The big question is now how successful Domestic Chains will be in keeping their newly recruited customers in the long run and how many of their big shopping baskets – the primary source of their flying high – will remain at them after the pandemic is over.