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Supermarket wars are a bargain hunter’s dream

Posted in General, Marketing January 5th, 2007 by Nikki Preston

I’m a sucker for bargains, which is probably why I shop at Asda – my household has banned me from going to Lidl after purchasing some ham for a mere 20p that looked more like something you would find in a cat’s bowl at dinner time.

Strolling through the sparse aisles of my local Asda last night I noticed an array of new packaging and with it a few serious price hikes - yeuch. In particular one of my staple buys - a tub of Asda’s Good For You! Greek yoghurt - which was priced at around 62p before Christmas now exceeds the £1 threshold. And although Asda is only a two minute stroll from my house, price and distance are the only things luring me there as the quality and selection is often debatable.

Now Tesco has slashed the prices of around 600 of its key items permanently I could easily be tempted to walk several steps further to reach a rival supermarket and if other supermarkets follow suit these retailers will become a bargain hunter’s haven.

Whether Tesco has signalled the start of what the media is dubbing the “supermarket pricing wars” by entering 2007 with guns blazing is causing hefty debate among retailers. Spokespersons for Sainsbury’s and Asda have refuted claims that they will react to Tesco’s aggressive pricing although this has not always been the case.

As more results are revealed in the next few weeks we can expect the heads to enlighten us of their game plan, and I just wonder whether any of these will involve injecting substantial sums of money to reduce the prices of everyday goods. Asda CEO Andy Bond has promised to continue cutting prices on a daily basis and also plans to place more emphasis on sourcing high quality products.

But to be honest, as January dwindles on and my pay packet gets sparser by the day I welcome anyone or anything that will be able to make my grocery bill cheaper and perhaps even get me buying my much loved low-fat yoghurt again. So I say let the supermarket wars begin!