As shoppers stayed local over Christmas, delivery and click & collect occasions grew to 10 per cent and 2 per cent of the total convenience store occasions, a new report from Lumina Intelligence has shown.
According to the data from the market researchers' Convenience Tracking Programme, these two occasions grew by two percentage points and 0.4ppts respectively in the 12 weeks ending on January 09, 2022, from the previous 12-week period.
The growth is mainly driven by risk aversion due to the rise of the Omicron variant, but also shoppers looking for more convenient solutions during the festive period, allowing them to spend more time at home.
This also drove a rise in local shopping, with shoppers staying close to home and away from town and city centres, the report added, noting the changes to retailer share of occasions. While city centre dominant operators, Tesco Express and Sainsbury’s Local, saw share occasion decline, retailers predominantly located in suburban areas, such as Co-Op, Best One, Budgens and Costcutter all benefitted from a rise in footfall.
"Omicron caused a significant amount of uncertainty and a shift to local shopping, with suburban convenience stores seeing the benefit of increased footfall," Catherine Prowse, senior insight manager at Lumina Intelligence, said.
"Once again, we see the opportunity that delivery can offer convenience stores – accounting for one-in-ten convenience occasions. Whilst Covid cases will have played a role, we still expect delivery to be a key growth driver for the future."
The rise of Omicron has also resulted in the return of over-65s to convenience stores. The proportion of over 65-year-old shoppers that visited c-stores increased by 6ppts compared to the previous 12weeks, with shoppers looking to avoid crowded supermarkets.
Newsagent missions increased by a further +1ppt, after growing +2ppts in the previous 12 weeks. Food to go missions decreased by 1ppts but the report expects FTG to increase over the next quarter as more consumers return to offices.
PMP purchasing increased by +2ppts (to 50%) in last 12 weeks. Chilled Foods (including Milk), Bakery and chilled products each saw a +1ppt increase in PMP purchases.
