Biedronka continues to dominate Poland’s discounter market

Photo credit: Agnieszka Murawska.

WARSAW, Poland: A ‘behavioural analysis’ of over 280,000 Polish food discounter shoppers showed that Biedronka stores were visited by as many as 93.5 per cent of shoppers in the first half of this year. In addition, a quarter of this network’s customers did not buy products from other competitors.

At the same time, the data showed that Netto and Aldi are gaining customers at the expense of Biedronka and Lidl. However, maintaining customer loyalty is becoming an increasing challenge.

The technology company Proxi.cloud and the analytical and research platform UCE Research compared the behaviour of over 280,000 food discounter shoppers in the first half of this year with the same period last year. Respondents visited a total of more than 5,000 institutions of this type across the country. Detailed analysis showed that the market positions of individual chains have not changed, although the balance of forces in the discounter market has changed over the last year.

Proxi.cloud found that Biedronka is still the undisputed leader. In the first half of this year, stores of this chain were visited by as much as 93.5 per cent of customers of all discount stores. This is 2.5 percentage points higher than the result recorded a year earlier. For comparison, it should be noted that in Lidl, market penetration recently amounted to 64.4 per cent, i.e. by 4.8 percentage points more than before.

However, in the Netto in the first half of this year, the ratio was 41 per cent, and it increased by 12.1 percentage points, which means the greatest growth within the researched chains.

Of course, in the case of Biedronka, such a large jump was not possible anymore. On the other hand, Aldi was visited by 18.2 per cent of all discounters customers from January to June this year, i.e. by 3.9 percentage points more than in the first half of 2021.

It was also observed that Biedronka generates as much as 63.6 per cent of all discount baskets. Year on year, it recorded an almost invisible drop of 0.1 percentage point. On the other hand, Lidl has recently recorded 20.6 per cent, which is 2.8 percentage points lower score than before. In the opinion of the authors of the study, this network was the worst in the fight for the customer on an annual basis. The shares of the other two chains in total traffic in food discount stores increased – by 2.5 percentage points in net and 0.4 percentage points in Aldi.

It should be noted that Biedronka has by far the strongest customer base. 24 per cent of them, i.e. nearly a quarter, do not shop at any other grocery store. For comparison, in the case of Lidl, the share of such loyal consumers is only 5 per cent, in Netto – 4 per cent, and Aldi – 1.9 per cent. In each network, a slight decrease in customer loyalty on an annual basis was observed. Thus, it can be seen that Poles began to go shopping more often while reducing their loyalty to any particular shop.

Source: Agroberichten Nederland and Business Insider Polska.

Want to know more about how Polish retail operates, particularly mass-market floral retail in Poland? Read the report and watch the Polish retail-themed webinar of FCI and AIPH HERE

 

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