UK expects limited retail sales growth in 2023

Budrigannews.com – According to NielsenIQ, a market researcher, retail sales of food will only grow by about 5% in 2023 due to a lack of confidence in personal finances and a reduction in disposable income.

In November, the Bank of England predicted that Britain would enter a long recession with inflation at 10.7% and that living standards would fall to their lowest level since records began in the 1950s. The government’s budget watchdog also predicted that inflation would not return to its target of 2% until early 2024.

Mike Watkins, the UK head of retailer and business insight for NielsenIQ, stated on Tuesday, “We also expect the recession to start to influence shopper behavior and reframe overall retail spend.”

He said that the UK’s households will have a hard time in 2023 because 33% only have enough money for essential expenses and only 5% can spend freely. The customers in the middle are those who live comfortably but are still careful with their money.

UK grocery sales increased by 10.9% year-over-year in the four weeks to December 31, according to NielsenIQ, despite a decline in volumes when inflation is taken into account.

It stated that the extremely cold weather at the beginning of December was beneficial to supermarkets, as was the ongoing disruption of rail service as a result of labor strikes, which slowed spending in hospitality channels and helped food retailers increase their “share of calories consumed” from out-of-home channels.

According to NielsenIQ, discounters Aldi UK and Lidl GB were the best performers with sales growth of 19.3% and 15.7%, respectively, over the 12 weeks to December 31, according to data published last week by rival market researcher Kantar.

No. 1 among the traditional major supermarket chains in Britain With sales increasing 8.5% over the course of the twelve weeks, two-player Sainsbury’s performed the best, followed by market leader Tesco (OTC:). with a 8.0% increase in sales and 3 Asda, with 7.9% more sales. Morrisons was last, with sales declining by 1.1%.

Spencer & Co. (OTC:) also did well, with a 9.0% increase in sales.

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This week, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and M&S are all scheduled to provide an update on Christmas trading.

According to NielsenIQ, while online sales increased by 2.8% in December, the company’s share of the grocery market decreased to 10.4% from 11.2% a year earlier.