U.S. Consumers Say Grocery Stores Are Failing in Pandemic Response

The new edition of the dunnhumby Consumer Pulse Survey doesn’t speak well of grocery stores. According to the survey, 64% of all Americans reported that grocery stores are not doing a good job with their response to COVID-19. Compare this with the February 2021 report that showed 50% of U.S. consumers believed that grocers were doing a good job in reacting to the pandemic. The new information may suggest a possible rise for online grocery sales.
Survey Results
In addition to the above findings, the dunnhumby survey shows:
- 76% of grocery shoppers don’t believe their grocery stores are at their pre-pandemic status
- 34% of shoppers are worried about unvaccinated shoppers
- On average, consumers are taking six grocery trips per week (up from 5.6 trips in July 2020)
- The number of consumers eating in a restaurant has increased from just 10% in March 2020 to 49% in September 2021
- The number of people who shop both store and online has increased to 47% since the beginning of the pandemic when it was at 35%
Twenty-nine percent of respondents in the study reported that Walmart provides the best value of all grocers, with Aldi (12%), Kroger (7%), and Target (6%) following respectively.
Brand Focus Digital’s Take
According to Grant Steadman, President for North America at dunnhumby, “After living with the pandemic for 20 months, consumers are now twice as concerned about their personal finances as they are about Covid itself. With inflation persisting, and government stimulus’ phased out, the majority of shoppers are now looking for greater value.”
With this in mind, note that both recent inflation and product shortages have resulted in higher prices at the grocery store. Higher prices mean consumers lose value since their money can no longer pay for the same groceries as in the past. We believe consumers are likely dissatisfied with grocers because of this loss of value.
Note too that we recently reported that online grocery sales for June 2021 were down 23% when compared to June 2020 sales. The recent discontent among U.S. consumers may translate into more shoppers turning to online platforms for their grocery needs, which could easily result in a rise for online grocery sales. Brand Focus Digital will continue to monitor these issues to see if this result actually pans out.
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- Food products
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