Shoppers keep cutting supermarket spending
Greeks have learnt a thing or two about making their euros go further since the start of the economic crisis, especially when it comes to the weekly shop, a survey by Focus Bari for Tetra Pak has shown. At the same time it appears that they are cottoning on to the fact that doing their supermarket shopping online saves both time and petrol money.
In an effort to save money when shopping for food and household goods, people are chasing up offers, buying private-label items from supermarkets and purchasing smaller quantities. These trends, which have emerged in the last few years, appear to be on the rise, while the signs from the first couple of months of 2016 regarding basic food sales such as milk are not encouraging.
Three out of four survey respondents (75 percent) said they have cut food expenditure, with average weekly supermarket spending dropping from 60 euros in December 2014 to 55 euros in January 2016.
Popular money-saving techniques include seeking out “two for the price of one” offers (79 percent or respondents), using discount vouchers (78 percent), price comparison (65 percent), purchasing private-label products (53 percent) and buying smaller quantities (52 percent). Some 51 percent said they put off buying certain purchases until they find them on special offer. They also choose to buy unpackaged goods when they can.
Meanwhile, the turnover of online supermarket shopping is seen reaching 383 million euros per year in 2020, or 3.6 percent of total supermarket turnover, then expected to come to 10.5 billion euros.
