A new findings from Roy Morgan Research have revealed that IGA has the most loyal customers of the four major supermarkets. It was found that 30% of people who mainly shop at IGA only shop at IGA. In comparison, 25% of consumers who mainly shop at Woolworths/Safeway shop there exclusively and 24% prefer to stick to Coles alone. Despite gaining traction in their search for market share, ALDI is still well behind in terms of customer loyalty with a much lower proportion (7%) of exclusive customers.
Overall though, most of Australia’s 14.2 million grocery-buyers still prefer to shop around, with 77% of shoppers visiting at least two different supermarkets in an average four week period, while 38% of grocery-shoppers reported visiting two supermarkets and 28% said they shop at three. Only 7% said they shop at all four major supermarkets.
Andrew Price, General Manager – Consumer Products, Roy Morgan Research, says “these results suggest that customer loyalty programs such as FlyBuys (held by more than half of Coles shoppers) and Everyday Rewards (held by more than 60% of Woolworths/Safeway customers) are not achieving the desired result.” Overall, he adds “while most grocery-buyers have a supermarket they mainly shop at, a relatively low proportion of them shop exclusively at that supermarket. They do not seem to have any great sense of loyalty to their main chain.”