We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.

Less Ads, More Data, More Tools Register for FREE

Pin to quick picksMRW.L Share News (MRW)

  • There is currently no data for MRW

Watchlists are a member only feature

Login to your account

Alerts are a premium feature

Login to your account

Britain's Sainsbury's makes it personal in price battle with rivals

Thu, 16th Sep 2021 00:01

By James Davey

LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - British supermarket group
Sainsbury's will offer lower prices to customers using
its digital loyalty scheme and self-scanner service, deepening
ties with shoppers and cutting costs in the latest wave of
innovation to hit the industry.

Dominated by Tesco and challenged by German
discount groups Aldi and Lidl, Britain's supermaket sector has
been marked by fierce competition and low margins for decades.

Sainsbury's, Britain's second largest grocer, said the move
to offer tailored digital discounts via its Nectar scheme was
the most advanced for UK grocers, though it follows similar
targeted initiatives by some U.S. and French food retailers.

It goes beyond the traditional loyalty model of customer
spend translating to points that can be redeemed on products and
is designed to encourage shoppers to use its SmartShop scanner
service, either with handsets or on their smartphones, which
ultimately will reduce the number of manned check-outs required
in stores.

Sainsbury's said that from next Wednesday, Nectar app
members shopping in stores will be able to access lower prices
on a selection of up to ten branded and Sainsbury's own-brand
products selected for them on a weekly basis.

In comparison, Tesco's "Clubcard Prices" scheme
offers lower prices to all Clubcard members on certain products,
but the offers are not personalised. Smaller retailer the Co-Op
offers discounts on fewer items based on spending habits.

Mark Given, Sainsbury's chief marketing officer, told
Reuters the price reductions - called "My Nectar Prices" - would
be a minimum of 10% per product.

He said more value conscious customers would likely get
regular discounts on vegetables, fruit, meat, fish and poultry -
the key fresh food battleground with Aldi and Lidl that has
forced the whole sector to cut prices.

More loyal Sainsbury's shoppers will get rewarded on things
they usually buy and also offers on other products their data
suggests they would be interested in.

"Advances in cloud computing and automation mean you can now
process genuinely unique offers that are personalised to you
with more real time data," Given said, adding his team had been
working on the personalisation algorithms and engines for up to
five years.

The "My Nectar Prices" offers will be additional to other
loyalty points offers already available on the app.

GOING DIGITAL

Sainsbury's now has eight million customers registered with
the Nectar digital app and CEO Simon Roberts is targeting 10
million by the end of next year.

The new offering should also encourage a greater uptake of
the self-scanning SmartShop service, which has taken off during
the COVID-19 pandemic as shoppers seek less human contact.

Sales were up 173% in the 2020-21 financial year and in
supermarkets with handsets, 30% of all sales were through
SmartShop, more than double the 2019-20 level of 14%.

Given said Sainsbury's would assess customer feedback before
eventually rolling out "My Nectar Prices" to the online grocery
channel.

Shares in Sainsbury's have risen 28% so far this year,
buoyed by bid speculation on the back of the Morrisons
takeover saga and signs Roberts' "food first" strategy is
starting to work.
(Reporting by James Davey Editing by Kate Holton and Mark
Potter)

More News
14 Apr 2024 13:31

Sunday newspaper round-up: Middle East, Aston Martin, Defence

(Sharecast News) - Britons must accept that their country was now involved in the Middle East conflict, Tobias Ellwood said. The former defence minister warned that "nobody was in full control" of the growing conflict as more and more countries were sucked in. Ellwood also said that Tehran's strike had taken the conflict into a "new dangerous territory". - Sunday Telegraph

Read more
14 May 2023 20:17

Sunday newspaper round-up: Tesco, National Grid, Morrisons

(Sharecast News) - Tesco's pension fund lost £9bn in value and fell into a deficit after multiple safe investments went sour. In particular, the fund is heavily exposed to so-called Liability Driven Investments. Those LDIs came unstuck in 2022 following a sharp rise in interest rates that left pension funds nursing heavy losses. Yet the grocer had no plans to pay more into the pension plan with a spokesman saying that the scheme was "in a strong position", "well-funded" and employing a different measure for estimating contributions then it was in fact "in surplus". - The Financial Mail on Sunday

Read more
1 Nov 2022 14:56

Morrisons to shut 132 loss-making McColl's stores

(Sharecast News) - Morrisons is planning to shut more than 100 loss-making McColl's stores, putting around1,300 jobs at risk.

Read more
2 Oct 2022 16:23

Sunday newspaper round-up: British Steel, Takeovers, Credit Suisse

(Sharecast News) - Jingye Group, the Chinese outfit that brought British Steel out of insolvency in 2020, has told ministers that its two blast furnaces would not be viable unless financial support from taxpayers was forthcoming. In remarks to Sky News, insiders said the company may need "hundreds of millions of pounds" in order to keep the company's blast furnaces in Scunthorpe, north Lincolnshire, operational. It remained nevertheless unclear whether the rescue package would take the form of a grant or loan. - Sunday Telegraph

Read more
9 Jun 2022 11:16

Morrisons takeover to go ahead after CMA clears petrol stations sale

(Sharecast News) - Britain's competition watchdog has confirmed the £7bn takeover of supermarket chain Morrisons by US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice can proceed after a deal was reached on the sale of 87 petrol stations.

Read more
9 May 2022 17:19

Morrisons confirms McColl's rescue deal

(Sharecast News) - Morrisons confirmed on Monday that it has agreed to buy convenience store operator McColl's from the administrator, seeing off competition from the Issa brothers' EG Group.

Read more
8 Apr 2022 10:38

Morrisons appoints Joanna Goff as CFO

(Sharecast News) - Supermarket chain Morrisons has appointed Joanna Goff as its new chief financial officer, succeeding Michael Gleeson, whose departure was announced last month.

Read more
7 Apr 2022 15:31

CMA could approve CD&R Morrisons takeover after undertakings

(Sharecast News) - The Competition and Markets Authority said on Thursday that it could approve the takeover of Morrisons by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice after the US private equity firm offered to divest some of its petrol stations to address competition concerns.

Read more
24 Mar 2022 10:20

CMA warns Morrisons takeover could push up petrol prices

(Sharecast News) - Morrisons' takeover by a private equity firm could lead to higher petrol prices in more than 100 places because of overlap between the two groups' petrol stations, the UK competition watchdog said.

Read more
13 Mar 2022 13:50

Sunday newspaper round-up: Renewables, Pearson, IAG

(Sharecast News) - The UK needs to massively expand wind farms across the country in order to safeguard national security, the business secretary has said, as the government considers sweeping changes to planning laws in order to improve energy independence. Against that backdrop, the Prime Minister will unveil a radical new "energy strategy" within a fortnight in order to make sure that that UK can get all the energy that it needs from a combination of renewables and nuclear. - Guardian

Read more
13 Feb 2022 21:56

Sunday newspaper round-up: Stanlow, British Construction, Saudi Aramco

(Sharecast News) - US investment firm Bartons Family Capital is thought to have put feelers out to the government regarding a possible bid for Stanlow, one of the UK's largest refineries. The critical piece of UK infrastructure is owned by the Indian billionaire Ruia brothers and struggled during the pandemic, postponing the payment of a £356m tax bill. Bartons' interest is believed to be at an early stage with no approach having yet been made to Essar, which is owned by the Ruia brothers. - The Sunday Times

Read more
30 Jan 2022 15:31

Sunday newspaper round-up: Vodafone Group, TSB, Inmarsat

(Sharecast News) - Activist investor Cevian Capital has taken out a stake in Vodafone Group and is understood to have held talks in recent weeks regarding ways for the company to improve its performance. Cevian could push Vodafone to sell some of its assets around the world, strengthen key business lines or buy back shares, Bloomberg reported. Rumours regarding the outfit's vulnerability to a take over were already swirling last week with private equity outfits said to be circling. In order to ward off that threat, Vodafone has been considering acquisitions or a merger of its wireless towers with Deutche Telekom or Orange. It has also approached CK Hutchinson about a possible merger. - Financial Mail on Sunday

Read more
23 Jan 2022 18:12

Sunday newspaper round-up: Unilever, Morrisons, Aston Martin

(Sharecast News) - Activist investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Partners has reportedly built up a stake in Unilever, which will likely pile on the pressure after the consumer goods giant's failed £50bn bid for GlaxoSmithKline's consumer health unit. The size of the stake, which was first reported by the Financial Times, is not known. Peltz had retired from the board of US-based rival Procter&Gamble just a few months before, but not before pushing for change that helped boost P&G's shares up by 85%. Over the past five years, Unilever stock has underperformed that of its major rivals, including Nestle, P&G, PepsiCo and L'oreal. - Sunday Telegraph

Read more
5 Jan 2022 08:56

Tesco wins as supermarkets back in favour over Xmas - Kantar

(Sharecast News) - UK supermarkets became popular once again as sales their highest level since March 2020 over Christmas with Tesco emerging as the main beneficiary.

Read more
7 Dec 2021 09:41

Cost of Christmas dinner jumps as food prices rise

(Sharecast News) - Food inflation pushed higher last month, industry data showed on Tuesday, with Christmas staples already costing more.

Read more

Login to your account

Don't have an account? Click here to register.

Quickpicks are a member only feature

Login to your account

Don't have an account? Click here to register.