Discount Frozen Food Retail Chain Iceland Foods has launched a new selection of savings across its frozen meal range, making it easier for customers who are feeling the squeeze on their household budgets. The frozen food retailer has a 3 for £10 offer on frozen fish, and a 3 for £10 on frozen meat, ideal for filling the freezer and reducing waste. Included in the deal is the Iceland fish pie mix (450g, £4.50) that can be used to make the ‘Freezer-Raid Family Fish Pie’ for just £2.50 a serving. Recent data from Kantar shows that demand is strongest for items such as frozen chicken, where volumes are up 5.9%. Meanwhile, frozen prepared foods, including ready meals, pizzas and chips are up 2.6%, and Which? has found from a supermarket price comparison that frozen food was cheaper across the board. It comes as Iceland unveils a new ‘Local’ convenience store format, owned and managed by forecourt operator SGN Retail. Across its range of frozen fish, Iceland’s 3 for £10 Mix and Match offer includes two boneless Atlantic salmon fillets (240g, £5.00), Atlantic cod fillets (320g, £5.00) and two Large Sea Bass Fillets (250g, £5.00), with savings of up to £5. The fish can also be mixed and matched with items from the 3 for £10 meat deal, which includes Iceland lean beef steak mince (475g, £5.00), chicken breast fillets (600g, £4.00) and diced chicken breast (600g, £3.75). “There has never been a better moment to take another look at what is possible from the freezer aisle for your weekly shop,” group buying director for Iceland Foods, Andrew Staniland said. “Not only is frozen food fresher, and healthier with less preservatives, there are some great new innovations that will bring excitement and variety to family mealtimes.” He added: “It can also help reduce food waste, with a stocked freezer meaning there are always new options, while delivering on value.” Read more: Iceland Foods launch new savings across its frozen meal ranges - Grocery Gazette - Latest Grocery Industry News #smartdiscount #uk #iceland #privatelabel #assortment #ownbrand #pricing #ranges #categories #drc #discount #retail #consulting #discountretail #discountretailconsulting #retailconsulting

Discount Home and Leisure Retail Chain Rusta from Sweden (privately owned) celebrates the opening of the 200th store in Kerpen (near Cologne), Germany. Rusta is a store for home-fixers, bargain hunters and passionate Rusta fans. And although much has changed in the years since 1986, one thing still remains the same, the long queues. The first store was opened in 1986 in the town of Gävle (Sweden) by entrepreneurs Anders Forsgren and Bengt-Olov Forssell, who are still the principal owners and have a hands-on role in the company today. This was followed by the opening of new stores in Uppsala and Östersund, and by the end of the year the number of stores in the Rusta chain had grown to five. By the beginning of 1998, there were 15 stores in Sweden, and this was also when we opened our first purchasing office in Asia. The company's success and rapid expansion continued throughout the 1990s. At the turn of the millennium, there were 25 stores and in 2008, Rusta had 52 stores and employed 578 people. The pace of expansion in recent years has been rapid and today Rusta has 109 stores in Sweden, from Kiruna in the north to Ystad in the south. Rusta abroad. 2014 was a historic year for Rusta, as that was when we made our breakthrough on the Norwegian market, opening five stores. Today there are 44 Rusta stores in Norway, as well as an office at Strømmen, near Oslo. Rusta opened our first store in Germany during 2017, today with a total of 8 stores. In 2018 Rusta aquired the Finnish retail chain Hong Kong with 25 stores across Finland. In 2020 Hong Kong was re-branded to Rusta, which means that Rusta is now active on four markets. Control of the value chain ensures quality. Rusta has five purchasing offices in Asia, which allows us to take an active role in product development. In total, these local purchasing offices have almost 80 employees. Our offices in Asia enable us to make frequent quality inspections, both of the product quality and of the working and manufacturing conditions. Rusta has kept a fast pace in recent years and opened 100 department stores since 2017. Today number 200 opens. And there may be many more in the chain's future market. "We have previously talked about 500 and I think that is still possible," says CEO Göran Westerberg, who has the recipe for success clear. Read more: Rusta öppna butiker i Sverige och Tyskland – firar 200 (market.se) #rusta #smartdiscount #stores #expansion #growth #investment #international #norway #germany #home #leasure #assortment #drc #discount #retail #consulting #discountretailconsulting #discountretail

Lidl is outpacing Aldi on store openings so far this year, despite scaling back its plans as its rival makes headlines with announcements of continued expansion. Aldi’s store number has remained at ‘over 990’ since the start of the year, while Lidl has opened 15 stores Lidl said in February it would open just 25 stores this year instead of the usual 50, to focus investment on warehouse expansion. The supermarket also made a number of redundancies in its construction department, while a property industry source told The Grocer at the time that only sites already agreed to were likely to be completed. In the wake of the news, Aldi made three announcements in as many weeks of its expansion ambitions, including one saying it was “stepping up its search for new sites across the country as it aims to continue rolling out new stores at pace”. However, Aldi’s store number has remained at “over 990” since the start of the year, while Lidl has opened 15 stores. It puts Lidl’s total store number at just 30 shy of Aldi’s, at over 960. A year ago Aldi was about 40 stores ahead of Lidl. Aldi is currently projecting its thousandth store – a landmark it had aimed to hit last year before running into challenges including planning permission delays – will come in quarter three of 2023. It said store openings were typically weighted toward the second half of the year, and in the meantime it had refitted about 25 shops so far in 2023 in the roll-out of its latest ‘Project Fresh’ format. Aldi projects it will open or relocate about 40 stores in the course of 2023. Source: The Grocer #smartdiscount #drc #discount #retail #consulting #discountretail #discountretailconsulting #aldi #lidl #uk #thegrocer #growth #expansion #newstores

Bol.com has been leading the way as the strongest retail brand in the Netherlands since the start of the Retail Brand Survey in 2015. That other homegrown growth spectacle – Action – is entering the top three for the first time. Both can expect the largest growth in the customer base, according to the Retail Brand Survey 2023. Action also wins the award for the best price-quality ratio, which Retail Trends presents for the first time. Top 5 Price - Quality Ratio in the Netherlands: Action Lidl Ikea Kruidvat Hema Top 10 strongest retail name in the Netherlands: Bol.com Kruidvat Action Hema Albert Heyn Ikea Lidl Blokker Jumbo Coolblue There is absolutely no question of a quiet time of flourishing after the hectic corona period in retail land. The competition is fiercer than ever, with each side fighting hard for a small gain over the competition. Never before have the position shifts in the top hundred strongest retail brands been as large as this year. No less than a third of all retailers have seen their position rise or fall by at least five places since 2022. Major outliers are Holland & Barrett (rising from 61st place to number 46) and BCC (dropping from 40th to 51st place). However, even for these two retail chains, the absolute brand value development is limited, if we make a comparison with the previous research measurements. The battle for the consumer euro is increasingly about the details. MediaMarkt is falling again Just like two years ago, MediaMarkt will be in the list of strongest fallers in 2023. According to the research results, the strength and image of the German electronics chain is less strong than parties such as bol.com and Coolblue, which are able to strengthen their brand position. According to consumers, Bol.com and Coolblue distinguish themselves on convenience, the quality of their range and the attractiveness of the price. MediaMarkt is not only sinking because of the reduced visibility of the brand. Developments are also negative on the other two pillars of brand power – appreciation and loyalty. In total, the brand is shrinking by three percent compared to last year. MediaMarkt has surrendered 3% of its brand value It is striking that consumers now experience the electronics chain as less visible. MediaMarkt spent more than 1.1 million euros on advertising in the Netherlands in the run-up to the World Cup, making it the largest advertiser among retailers. Competitor BCC will lose a similar part of its brand value this year, mainly due to a drop in awareness. This may be caused by the end of the collaboration with Wehkamp. Wehkamp has been offering BCC electronics products since 2018. Due to disappointing sales figures and high costs for maintaining double stock, the partnership came to an end after four years. Jan Linders says goodbye in place 88 The fact that the Jan Linders brand, just before the rebranding to Albert Heijn, is one of the biggest fallers of 2023, will probably not interest the parties involved. More annoying is the comparable decline of Vomar Voordeelmarkt and Nettorama. It is vital for these supermarket chains to positively distinguish themselves from the major players. The significant drop in awareness and appreciation in the period 2022-2023 does not help to avoid the continuous threat of takeovers. None of the other Superunie members (Boni, Coop, DekaMarkt, Hoogvliet, Nettorama, Poiesz and Spar) succeeded in increasing their brand value. Wehkamp again among the strongest descenders While Wehkamp was the Dutch market leader in online shopping for many years, the Zwolle company will be back in the list of strongest fallers in 2023, just like three years ago. Wehkamp does not succeed in making its distinctive character clear compared to other online players or physical stores. This may change if the company starts setting up more specialized webshops, as previously announced. Jumbo back to position of 2017 Due to the load of negative publicity surrounding the departed CEO Frits van Eerd and the advertising miss during the World Cup, the brand value of the Jumbo supermarket chain has dropped significantly. The cliché that negative attention is also attention is once again true: all the fuss makes Jumbo's brand awareness rise slightly. However, the brand value is falling considerably due to a decline in appreciation for the chain and the connection that consumers felt with the always so sympathetic Brabant company. For five years, Jumbo held eighth place in the national ranking of strongest retail brands. In 2023, the chain will be back in ninth place from 2017. Holland & Barrett now only at the level of De Tuinen The enormous impact of a brand name change on a brand's value becomes clear when we look at Holland & Barrett. This year, the brand is experiencing a growth spurt, which means that it is now 46th in the top hundred strongest retail brands. A year ago this was still the 61st place. However, only seven years after the rebranding, it is now just as strong as the old De Tuinen brand. In the meantime, the reputation has changed considerably. While De Tuinen had a much more soft and creative image, Holland & Barrett is known as a price and promotion driven health store. Thanks to the marketing efforts, the appreciation for the chain and the bond among consumers is now much stronger than at De Tuinen. Shein, the Chinese online fast fashion retailer, is the second strongest riser of 2023. A remarkable development after all the negative publicity about poor working conditions and forced labour. The research results show that consumers quickly forgot about media reports. The appreciation for the international fashion giant has even increased significantly in the past year. Likeability is the most important brand personality factor In order to explain the development of brand power, retailers are monitored on sixteen brand personality factors in the Retail Brand Research. This offers insight into the atmosphere around the brand as if it were a human being. The strongest relationship with brand value appears to lie in how sympathetic consumers find an organization. In 2023, Dutch consumers have by far the most sympathy for HEMA. The numbers two and three, IKEA and bol.com, follow at a considerable distance. Value for money most important brand performance factor Even before inflation erupted, the relationship between price and quality was already the most important functional characteristic of a successful brand. Over time, however, the importance of this factor has further increased, as has the often related promotion intensity of a retailer. You get the most value for money at Action and Lidl, according to Dutch consumers. This is followed by IKEA, Kruidvat and HEMA. Especially at Kruidvat, Action and Lidl, the strong price position appears to be the result of a continuous stream of price promotions. Bol.com again leader in brand strength and growth expectation The turnover potential of bol.com appears to increase every year. For the ninth time in a row, the online department store is head and shoulders above the other retailers when it comes to brand strength. According to Dutch consumers, Bol.com is also number one again when it comes to the greatest future growth in its customer base. Since 2022, however, bol.com has had to share this leading position with Action. Shoppers in the Netherlands have by far the most admiration for the two companies in terms of innovative entrepreneurship. The only party that has dropped out of the top five expected growers compared to last year is Amazon. The American competitor of bol.com falls back to eleventh place. With Action, Lidl, Aldi and IKEA as other top brands of the future, physical shopping is clearly on the rise. The competitive price profile helps these players enormously in inflationary times. Source: RetailTrends #smartdiscount #action #netherlands #retailtrends #brand #preferance #research #winner #pricequality #drc #discount #retail #consulting #discountretail #discountretailconsulting

Consulting company EY-Parthenon unveils its 2023 ranking of the favorite brands of the French. For the first time, a foreign brand tops the ranking. The variety discounter Action has become the favorite brand of the French in 2023 As every year, EY-Parthenon carries out a ranking of the favorite brands of the French by interviewing, with the help of the Dynata polling institute, a panel of 9300 people aged 18 and over representative of the French population. 165 brands were rated by consumers, in 18 different sectors of activity (see methodology below). "Our survey is conducted independently and is intended to be objective," says Frédéric Fessart, partner at EY-Parthenon. Customer Experience Great first for the 2023 general ranking: Action becomes the favorite brand of the French. "For several years, Action had been progressing in the rankings. The brand has grown strongly in France by opening many stores. 80% of French people have already made purchases at Action," says Frédéric Fessart and notes: "this is the first time that a foreign brand is at the top of our ranking." Action thus beats Decathlon and Leroy Merlin who used to compete for the first place in the hearts of the French. In addition to the low prices, what seduces the French is the customer experience offered by the discounter. "The buying journey is ultra-efficient, in twenty minutes, we went around the store. The "treasure hunt" side also pleases a lot. When they go to Action, consumers tell us that they often find something surprising and new for themselves or their families," says Frédéric Fessart. Guy-Noël Chatelin, also a partner at EY-Parthenon, confirms: "They have something to say after going to Action, more than in other discount brands". Note also the return of Picard and Histoire d'Or in the top 10 to the detriment of Sephora. Also noteworthy is Ikea's popularity rating, which continues to decline in the ranking. Below, you will find the 2023 general ranking of the favorite brands of the French and in the other articles of this dossier, you will find the rankings by sector: food, fashion, bazaar, household appliances and multimedia, DIY and gardening, beauty, fashion, sport, furniture-decoration, jewelry-watchmaking, cultural products as well as the top 10 brands involved. The general ranking and its evolution since 2020: Methodology The study measures the percentage of fans among customers who have made a purchase in the relevant category in the last 12 months. Respondents give the brands visited an overall satisfaction rating and a score on 14 criteria (scoring from 1 to 5 stars) divided into 5 general criteria (trust, quality-price ratio, quality of the offer, after-sales service, sustainable development), 5 criteria on the in-store experience (in-store decision support, in-store shopping experience, in-store shopping pleasure, kindness and advice from in-store teams, proximity), 4 criteria on the digital and omnichannel experience (online decision support, online shopping experience, online shopping pleasure, omnichannel). Read more: Action becomes the favorite brand of the French #smartdiscount #action #france #ey #parthernon #brand #preferance #research #winner #most #drc #discount #retail #consulting #discountretail #discountretailconsulting #nonfrench

Discount Non-food Retail Chain Pepco Group (listed WSE:PCO) has reported a 22.8% increase in first-half revenue, driven by strong demand for its value offers from cash-strapped shoppers and the opening of 166 new stores. The Warsaw-listed group said revenue stood at €2.84 billion for the six months to March 31. Like-for-like sales were up 11.1% in the first half and up 8.5% in the second quarter. Full-Year 'On Track' The owner of the Pepco, Poundland and Dealz brands said it remained on track to deliver full-year core earnings growth in the "mid-teens". European consumers have been pressured for more than a year by high inflation that has outstripped pay growth. In economic downturns, discount operators tend to do relatively better than mainstream peers, as they have lower cost bases and shoppers become more price sensitive. 'The macro environment the group faces is more balanced now than in the past 18 months with product input costs starting to ease, though headwinds remain on other costs, including energy,' Pepco said, noting an improving margin outlook in the second half. Italian Landmark Earlier this month, Pepco announced the opening of its 100th outlet in Italy, following a recent expansion drive in the country. The new store is located at the Parco Da Vinci Shopping Centre in Rome. The pan-European variety discount retailer operates more than 3,000 stores, spanning Estonia in northern Europe to Italy in the south, and from Spain in the west to Bulgaria in eastern Europe. Read more: Poundland Owner Pepco Sees First-Half Sales Up 22.8% | ESM Magazine #smartdiscount #pepco #dealz #poundland #steinhoff #expansion #growth #ebit #drc #discount #retail #consulting #discountretail #discountretailconsulting

X5 Group announced the launch of the first "hard discounter" under the Chizhik brand in the Samara Region. The assortment of stores includes about 750 product names, more than 400 of which are private labels . These include the brands "Svetaevo", "Werner", "Shchedryi God", "Greenola", "Axl", "Tafo" and others. "Chizhik" is a store whose business model is based on the sale of a narrow but sought-after assortment of high quality. Optimization of business processes and constant work with a reduction in store costs allows us to offer customers low prices, and the sale of our own brands allows the retail chain to choose only those products that meet the required level of quality and set fair prices for goods without unnecessary margins. A distinctive feature of the assortment of "Chizhik" is also the "We must be in time" zone, which presents interesting goods for the home, kitchen, garden, etc., at low prices. The stores will be supplied by both federal and local suppliers from the Chizhik distribution center in Kazan. By the end of the year, the network will create about 180 new jobs for residents of the region. The Samara region became the tenth region for the retail chain. By the end of the year, Chizhik plans to open another 55 stores in Samara, Ulyanovsk and Togliatti. At the end of 2022, Chizhik opened more than 500 stores in 8 regions, in 2023 the retail chain plans to continue active expansion, doubling the number of openings and new regions of presence. Source: https://www.retail.ru/news/chizhik-otkryl-pervye-magaziny-v-samarskoy-oblasti-18-aprelya-2023-227989/ #smartdiscount #discountfoodretail #discounter #discount #foodretail #retail #drc #discountretailconsulting #retailconsulting #consulting #consultancy #x5 #x5group #chizik #samara

Research of the Retail Cities team is currently asking the important question, “How are consumers who live pay-event to pay-event doing these days?” There are two ways to look at this. 1) Using government statistics on income and poverty 2) Looking at the success/failure or retailers that target these consumers We don’t think you need to pick from one or the other, you can pick both. A simple way to do this is to take a statistic on poverty and then combine it with a statistic on value retailer presence. For instance, we took what the US government calls the “200% above the official poverty line” statistic and combined it with the number of discounter Dollar General stores per 100,000 residents, by state. This gives you a very good sense of where cash-strapped consumers live and whether the value retailers are servicing those consumers. The answer, in the case of Dollar General, is that they have a perfect match-up. We also looked at leading ‘value’ retailer performances such as Dollarama in Canada and Five Below in the USA. The numbers are pretty striking. Dollarama now generates over CAD$ 5 billion in annual revenue across 1,486 stores in Canada. They also do strong business in Central America via a Dollar City investment. Discounter Five Below exceeded USD$ 3 billion in annual revenues across 1,340 stores in 42 of the US 50 states. Of the USD$ 3 billion, 23.2% comes from the new snacking category. Discounter Aldi exceeded USD$ 11 billion in annual revenues across its more than 2,100 stores in 38 US states. Read also here why Aldi outpaces the competition: USA: Aldi is the fastest-growing grocery chain (discountretailconsulting.com) When you look at things both ways, it's very clear that there are more consumers living pay event to pay event in 2023 and there are a lot of sophisticated retailers, growing quickly, operating in this space. The Dollar Store / Value Retail segment is the fastest growing segment of retail. That's a trend that will continue. Read more: Cash Strapped Consumers | LinkedIn #smartdiscount #usa #canada #research #aldi #dollarama #dollargeneral #fivebelow #retailcities #growth #expansion #discount #drc #retail #consulting #discountretail #discountretailconsulting

The Albrecht brothers made history with the invention of the discounter. And the high inflation even increases the attractiveness of low-cost providers. But there is one area where there is some catching up to do. In view of the dramatic price increases for food, the discounters are currently experiencing a boom. With their concentration on inexpensive products, they hit the nerve of the times. So it's fitting that the discount inventor Aldi is celebrating an important anniversary this year. 110 years ago, the Aldi founding family Albrecht laid the foundation for their current retail empire. The baker Karl Albrecht started on April 10, 1913 in Essen a "Trade mit Backwaren". From the small beginnings emerged one of the largest trading empires in the world. The sister companies Aldi Nord and Aldi South are now active not only in Europe and North America, but also in Australia. "The discounters are with their cheap offers today more than ever an important support for many households," said the trade expert Robert Kecskes of the market research company GfK of the German press Agency. No wonder, then, that according to GfK, discounters have increased their market share in Germany from 12.2022 to 34.8 percent within just 36 months until the end of 9 - at the expense of supermarkets and specialist retailers. At the beginning of the year, too, the shift of sales to low-cost suppliers continued unabated. Karl Albrecht Junior and Theo Albrecht write the success story Despite all the pioneering spirit, however, the baker Karl Albrecht is not behind the success story of the Albrecht family. It is his sons Karl Albrecht Junior and Theo Albrecht who have made the company great. After the death of their father, they took over Responsibility in his parents' business and developed the discount concept. The first "Aldi" store, the abbreviation stands for "Albrecht-Diskount", was opened in 1962, a good 60 years ago. The original recipe for success: A small assortment in a sparse ambience at rock-bottom prices. This taught Aldi and a little later also the rival Lidl in Germany and subsequently also in many other countries, the supermarket competition feared. However, today's Aldi stores have little in common with those of the early days. Where once cold neon lights and goods on wooden pallets dominated the storescape, modern shop design with a feel-good ambience has long since found its way. And in addition to the classic own brands, more and more branded products can now be found at Aldi. "People today want a pleasant shopping environment. The discounters had a lot of catching up to do and they did it," said Kecskes. Ironically, with their most important feature - the low prices - the discounters are struggling at the moment. They, too, have recently had to raise prices sharply - in percentage terms, even more than many branded companies, as Kecskes reports. This is because the drastic increase in energy and procurement costs had an even greater impact on own-brand brands, which are priced at a lower level, than on manufacturer brands with their generally significantly higher advertising expenditure and profit margins. More decisive for customers, however, is probably that, despite the price jump, private labels are usually still significantly cheaper at the checkout than branded goods. Aldi neglects online retail So is everything in the green in the anniversary year? Not quite. According to retail expert Gerrit Heinemann from the University Lower Rhine still a neglected construction site: online trading. "So far, discounters have not had to deal with the topic of online trading in a big way," says the retail expert. But it is only a matter of time before the topic becomes relevant for them. "And then it will be difficult for Aldi, because rival Lidl has a considerable lead here." In fact, Lidl has managed to secure a place among the top ten German e-commerce retailers with its online shop in the latest ranking of the Cologne retail research institute EHI. With a turnover of over one billion euros, lidl.de took 8th place in the ranking, although the discounter hardly offers any food online. For comparison: Aldi does not appear at all with its online shop among the top 100. Heinemann is convinced that the imbalance should set alarm bells ringing at Aldi. "It's easy for Lidl to pull the lever and sell food when the time comes. Aldi is far from ready." Read more: From bakery retailer to global corporation: What would Germany be without Aldi - cio.de #smartdiscount #history #germany #aldi #aldinord #aldisued #legacy #drc #discount #retail #consulting #discountretail #discountretailconsulting

Discount Retail Chain Lidl Portugal (owned by the German Schwarz Group) has announced plans to introduce digital price tags in all its stores in Portugal, replacing the existing paper labels. The German chain said the move is part of its ongoing commitment to sustainability and will result in savings of 400kg of paper per year per store (or 108 tonnes annually for its national network). This follows a successful pilot in one store in October 2022 and is now being rolled out gradually, with the completion date set to be the end of the first half of 2024. The digital price tags allow Lidl to make price and information changes in near real time. The price tags are directly connected to the merchandise management system and receive all information automatically. Read more: Fruchtportal.de - News on the subject of fruit trade, fruit and vegetables for the fruit industry #smartdiscount #lidl #portugal #esl #electronicshelflabel #pricetags #pricing #store #growth #expansion #drc #discount #retail #consulting #discountretail #discountretailconsulting

Discount Retail Chain Aldi Germany (German family owned) wants to fight inflation with a large-scale marketing campaign. Consumers will pay only 55 euro cents for a cucumber this week. "Cheap becomes even cheaper," begins the press release of the supermarket chain Aldi Nord. Since April 17, the company says it has waived part of its own profit margin. "We have deliberately decided to forego margins in order to provide our customers with the best possible support in these difficult times," explains Lars Kürten, Managing Director at Aldi Nord. The sister company Aldi Süd had already implemented massive price reductions in March, especially for fruit and vegetables. The price of a kilogram of apples was reduced by 23 percent at the time. "True to its claim 'Good for all.', the company is making good food affordable for everyone," the discounter explained in its press release. The latest price reduction is accompanied by a joint marketing campaign on social media. In the future, consumers will be informed about the latest price reductions there and in print products. The campaign at Aldi Nord started this week with a reduced price for vine tomatoes. Customers pay only 2.99 euros per kilogram instead of 3.49 euros. The current prices at Aldi Nord A bunch of spring onions: 0.49 euros (-28 percent) One grapefruit: 0.49 euros (-16 percent) One cucumber: 0.55 euros It is not yet clear how long the price reductions will last. In the press release, however, Aldi Nord speaks of "permanent" changes the fruit and vegetable shelf. The share of its profits that the discounter gives to consumers with the campaign also remains unknown. After the drastic increase in consumer prices, the German supermarket giants are trying again and again to lure their customers with cheap offers. It was only in February that numerous discounters lowered their prices for butter after it was severely affected by inflation. The Federal Statistical Office calculated an increase in consumer prices of 7.4 percent for March. Experts do not expect a significant change in the inflation rate this year. Read more: "Fresh every day, always cheap": Aldi discounter advertises with permanent price drop for fruit and vegetables (tagesspiegel.de)

Verny discount retail chain has withdrawn half of the products from the Beluga Group, a manufacturer and importer of alcoholic beverages, from the assortment of the chain. Almost two dozen SKUs left store shelves, including Fox & Dogs whiskey, Devil's Island rum, as well as several brands of vodka, cognac and tinctures. All withdrawn items were replaced by other leading manufacturers. One of the reasons for this decision of the network was the difference in purchase prices compared to some large retail chains. At the end of last year, it amounted to 6.5% not in favor of Verny. At the same time, the supplier refused to recognize such a difference as price discrimination, and set counter conditions for the retailer's proposals to reduce it, which were not beneficial to the network. "The supplier was ready to slightly reduce the purchase prices for the buyers of the network, but on condition that we bring 10 more items into the assortment. This was unjustified from an economic point of view, since even without these positions, the assortment sold poorly and stood on store shelves like a dead weight. Additional positions would further aggravate this situation, "Verny explained. In response to the retailer's decision to withdraw unpopular products from sale, the supplier increased prices for those items that were not affected by the cuts. In mid-March, their prices rose by 1.7 - 11.7%. And in early April, the supplier announced another price increase and immediately by 6 - 10% for 5 import items. The partner explained the last rise in price by an increase in the cost of raw materials used in production. "It is not advisable for us to keep products on the shelves that are not in demand among our customers. That is why we decided to withdraw more than half of the positions from the Beluga Group and replace them with more popular analogues from other manufacturers, "commented Anton Bakharev, commercial director of the Verny chain of stores. Source: https://www.retail.ru/news/vernyy-zamenil-alkogol-ot-beluga-group-na-analogi-17-aprelya-2023-227956/ #smartdiscount #discountfoodretail #discounter #discount #foodretail #retail #drc #discountretailconsulting #retailconsulting #consulting #consultancy #verny #belugagroup