The most popular types of grocers in Canada
Conventional grocers, comprising almost 40% of the Canadian market, represent the second and third most popular for Canadians’ grocery shopping preferences.
The top type of retailers grew grocery revenue the most over the past five years and have built a competitive edge in overall market share. Retailers with clear and strong customer value propositions — indicated by higher rankings in the index — grew up to 1.5 times faster over the long-term and three times faster in the past year than retailers with lower rankings.
“The RPI has been a core report for retailers across the US for the last eight years, playing a fundamental role in helping grocers focus their value propositions on the needs of the customer. The Canadian RPI can play a similarly pivotal role in the Canadian grocery industry, supporting retailers to capitalize on opportunities driven by change and even help conventional grocers do something more unconventional to meet changing needs,” Thomson said.
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Get A QuoteA look into Canadians’ grocery preferences
It’s not the larger than life products at Costco that make it the top choice for Canadians’ stocking up on groceries. Canadian retailers' long-term success is based on the following categories:
- Price, promotions and rewards proposition (44%)
- Quality (31%)
- Digital (11%)
- Speed and convenience (8%)
- Operations (6%)
Value lever importance varies by region, with 48% of Ontario based retailers’ long-term success due to their price, promotions and rewards proposition, compared to 35% for Atlantic-based retailers.
Costco’s success is due to their powerful performance across four out of the five pillars, including ranking first for operations nationally.
In addition, Costco is moving towards becoming an everyday retailer for customers as it becomes more accessible to customers through third-party delivery channels such as Uber Eats and Instacart and as it increases its presence in home meal replacement categories.
Walmart wins on the digital ranking across all regions, but three out of 10 Canadian customers shop Amazon for groceries.
Survey methodology
The dunnhumby company analyzed customer and financial data for the 28 largest conventional, discount, superstore and club banners in Canada, which account for 97% of market share in those formats.
The customer perception data comes from dunnhumby’s survey of 6,000 Canadian grocery shoppers.
The five drivers of the customer value proposition are: Price, promotions and rewards; quality; digital; speed and convenience; and operations. Financial data analyzed included market share, near-term and long-term sales growth.
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