The latest Alcohol Retail Currency report from Roy Morgan Research has shown that supermarkets are continuing to take market share from hotel bottle shops.
It is important to note that Roy Morgan data is collected through interviews with around 50,000 Australians per annum in their own homes, including more than 7,000 who had purchased packaged alcohol within four weeks of being interviewed.
The report says that Woolworths Group-owned outlets picked up 250,000 customers in the year to September while hotel bottle shops lost 240,000.
It lists the total value of the packaged alcohol market as $15.1bn and says that Woolworths Group accounts for $7.9bn of that.
Woolworths and Coles continue to dominate market share, with 5.83 million and 2.41 million customers respectively. That gives Woolworths Group market penetration of 61.8 per cent and market share in dollar terms of 52.1 per cent. By comparison, Coles Group has market penetration of 25.5 per cent and market share of 15.4 per cent.
Woolworths brands Dan Murphy’s and BWS both increased their customer bases over the 12 months to September, by four per cent and 9.3 per cent respectively. Coles’ liquor brands saw more mixed results with Liquorland customer numbers declining by 13.1 per cent over the year, First Choice remaining virtually unchanged and Vintage Cellars growing its customer base by 18.5 per cent.
Michele Levine, CEO, Roy Morgan, highlighted that the report’s findings showed the success of Woolworths, and in particular Dan Murphy’s, is having an adverse effect to the trade of hotel bottle shops.
“The success of the Woolworths Group’s brands continues to set the pace, with Dan Murphy’s growing its customer base by four per cent in the year to September and BWS by 9.3 per cent over the same period.
“This is certainly harming the trade of hotel bottle shops, which have continued to lose customers. That has to hurt in a retail environment in which total spend on packaged alcohol has been falling throughout 2018.
“Our research shows a number of drivers of buying behaviour in this market, including proximity to other shops, low prices, an easily browseable range and good special offers.
“Roy Morgan’s Single Source survey data can help retailers across the sector understand who their customers are and where they live, work and shop. And our psychographic segmentation tool Helix Personas can help explain customers’ buying behaviour and how to communicate with them.
“The Roy Morgan Alcohol Retail Currency Report looks at long- and short-term trends for the market size and share (in dollars), customer numbers and cross visitation and overall purchase channel types as well as looking in-depth at major supermarket retailers.”