Data: Grocery promotional activity returns as availabilities stabilise

Data from Edge by Ascential shows that average out-of-stock levels across the major UK online grocers ended the week at 17.2%, compared with 16.3% a week ago.

Last week, there were signs of a second wave of stockpiling as consumers ran low on essentials bought prior to lockdown and, for this reason, grocers have been cautious about fuelling more demand through promotional activity, particularly multibuys.

Promotions in supermarkets halved during the week commencing March 24 as the coronavirus pandemic hit. Across essential categories analysed by Edge, an average of 13% of items were on promotion, compared with 26% in January.

This level continued for four weeks and it is only over the last week that promotional activities began to rebound, with 15% of items on promotion in the week commencing April 28.

This was largely due to Ocado, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose beginning to reinstate price promotions across their ranges, although multibuys have been largely discontinued.

However, ambient categories remain under pressure. Tinned pasta and frozen pastry and dough have now overtaken toilet paper and other paper products as the most out-of-stock categories in the UK’s supermarkets.

Other tinned and ambient items remain in strong demand as consumers shop less frequently with larger basket sizes.

The categories that have seen most pressure in terms of stockpiling have not yet seen an increase in promotions.

The observed rise in promotions are instead across categories such as snacking, cereals and chilled ready meals.

Chris Elliott, insights manager at Edge by Ascential, said: “Following the stockpiling trends among consumers in the last few months, supermarkets have naturally been cautious about bringing back more promotions, cutting them by half in the last four weeks in a bid to control stock levels.

“Although these stock levels are much better than they were at the end of March, the number of out-of-stock products is still eight times higher than it was at the start of the year.

”It is clear that retailers should still remain cautious, as following the government’s last announcement that the UK lockdown would be extended, we saw a much smaller ‘second wave’ of stockpiling.

“Given the changing situation, this prudent approach that supermarkets have taken to control promotions is certainly best to ensure shelves remain stocked. They will continue to monitor this closely and are likely to cautiously introduce more promotions where supply chains allow.”