Have high street customers moved away to supermarkets?

Valentino’s Displays wanted to know your views on whether high street customers have moved away to large supermarket chains? Have customers abandoned high street retail stores to get their items at their local supermarket? If so why? Is this because of price or convenience, for example getting the additional items when you do a food shop?

We realise the UK economy is in a delicate state but we are trying to figure out the reasons behind customer buying patterns and why certain parts of the UK’s high streets are empty.

Grocery items such as milk and bread are key products to any supermarket such as Sainsbury’s, Tesco or Asda but we wonder the proportion of sales these such items have compared with sales from DVD’s, video games and most technological items usually found on the high street.

By competing hard on price has this changed the way consumers are shopping?

Display stands crammed with computer associated goods. This does not bode well for those on the high street but we could say that nothing has significantly changed as this has been the case for a number of years. Supermarkets are able to buy in bulk and offer products most retailers can’t buy for!

All we are unsure of is whether supermarkets are putting more emphasis on non-food items in terms of sales and therefore increasing their product range and thus offering the consumer more choice under one roof and therefore capturing greater portions of the non-food market. The answer will be seeing supermarket sales figures for these types of products and seeing whether there is a significant increase over a period of time and in comparison to the other sectors of produce they sell.

Have our buying patterns changed?

What do you think have high street customers moved from the retail high street to supermarkets? Have our buying patterns changed? Do we mind? Is the view it’s competition and we don’t really care where we buy it as long as we get the product for a good price? Have you travelled further away than needed to buy a product cheaper?

We shall see how the new Tesco superstore in Fareham town centre who we have just done a recent piece on, competes for local business against Fareham high street. We watch with anticipation to see whether such a supermarket was required in the area with the retail high street and large food chains in its close proximity to see what impact it has on the local community.