NEW YORK – A new nationwide study of consumers indicates that young shoppers increasingly demonstrate loyalty to the stores that they use for household and grocery purchases. The consumers surveyed shop often (at least weekly), but a majority do their regular grocery shopping at only two stores. Further, these shoppers are very likely to purchase store brands, with about half of the respondents saying they buy private label products “always/almost always/frequently.”
“The Rise of Loyal Shoppers” study, produced by the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA), focused on 1,059 men and women ages 25-45, a segment that makes up more than one-third of the U.S. adult population. This age group is important to retailers because their spending on household grocery products is considered to be the highest among all age groups.
“This latest study indicates that many long-held assumptions, shaped by years of market dominance by the Baby Boom generation, are no longer true,” said PLMA President Brian Sharoff, in a press release. “Buffeted by a severe recession, a revolution in communications, media and advertising, and a retail landscape that bears little resemblance to what existed less than a decade ago, today’s consumer is not the same shopper we used to know.”
According to the study’s findings, consumers patronizing just two stores for their regular household grocery needs is by far their most popular shopping regimen and has been increasing as a habit overall during the past decade. This runs counter to the conventional wisdom that consumers are increasingly shopping across a growing number of stores for different products.
Consumers are in fact very loyal to their favorite stores and the survey reveals that these younger consumers have been loyal to their favorite stores for years. Six in 10 of those surveyed have regularly shopped at their grocery store/mass merchandiser for more than five years. Half have shopped at their drug store for that long.
Consumers buy store brands on a continuous basis. About half of the respondents buy store brands “always/almost always/frequently” in their supermarkets, drug stores and mass merchandisers. This is a dramatic increase in the top rates of purchase when compared to past PLMA studies.
As the survey results show, these products may be the retailer’s best friend. Consumers in increasing numbers are trying store brands for the first time in product categories where they had previously only bought a national brand, and with overwhelming satisfaction. According to PLMA, one of the most significant findings in the survey was that about half (49%) of respondents recently choose a store brand for the first time instead of a favorite national brand in a particular category. When later asked how they compare the store brand with their previous choice of a national brand, 28% reported “very favorably” and another 62% said “favorably.”