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Study: Consumers name Giant Food, ShopRite as favorite grocers

May 24, 2012

Giant Food is consumers' favorite grocer, followed closely by ShopRite and then Walmart, according to a new consumer study by Market Force Information, a customer intelligence solutions company. The panel research study, conducted in March with more than 6,400 participants, also uncovered why consumers prefer one grocer to another, among other insights.

When consumers were asked which grocery store captures the most of their dollars, eight grocers earned more than 2 percent of the vote, with Walmart, Kroger and Publix Super Markets landing in the top three spots. However, since grocery retailers have thousands of locations and others have a fraction of that, Market Force indexed the results by store count in order to get a more accurate representation of the results. This analysis moved Giant Food to the No. 1 position, closely followed by ShopRite, and then Walmart, Publix, Costco, Kroger, ALDI and Safeway.

The survey then asked consumers to rank the top eight grocery retailers on a number of attributes such as pricing, cleanliness, customer service, meat and produce quality, atmosphere and sustainable practices. Results showed that consumers perceive ALDI as the affordable price leader with Walmart, ShopRite and Costco coming in very closely thereafter. This is the second consecutive year that ALDI came out ahead on price. However, ALDI is able to achieve its low prices by sticking to a limited selection of merchandise, and consumers give ALDI the lowest ratings for that dimension as well as for natural/organic options.

"The close scores in the pricing category demonstrate that consumers are not seeing differentiation on price as clearly as the price leaders would hope," said Janet Eden-Harris, chief marketing officer for Market Force. "Low pricing is the tablestakes for grocers who must now find new ways to distinguish themselves from their competitors down the block."

Market Force's study revealed that location and price are the main reasons consumers shop where they do, but they're not the only driving factors. Operational excellence — the ability to execute on factors such as cleanliness, courteous staff and fast checkout — also plays a large role. When it comes to the food itself, high-quality produce is more important to shoppers than high-quality meat. And, despite a recent industry-wide emphasis on sustainability, it was only significant to 7 percent of respondents.

Read more about consumer behavior.