Engage3 publishes regular market pricing reports to help retailers and brands enhance their pricing performance through data science and analytics. Register to get more detailed information about this report, or to automatically receive updates on pricing reports in the future here.
Engage3 collected pricing data during the last quarter of 2018 (October 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018) from 46 grocers at 198 store locations. This report shows how a select group of 11 grocers fared in their private label, national brands, and fresh offerings.
In this analysis, the lowest price across regular, promotional or loyalty pricing for each price point was used, and outliers were excluded. The grocers’ average pricing in each category were divided over the market average (and subtracted one). Numbers greater than zero indicate a banner with above-average pricing, while negative numbers indicate a grocer with pricing below the market average. Note: Walmart data was not a part of this data sample.
Key Findings
- Engage3’s analysis showed that Lidl, Aldi and H-E-B led in private label, coming in at -32, -26%, and -13% respectively, below the market average in this category for the last quarter ended in 2018.
- Kroger led in the national brand category, followed by H-E-B and Target, where the mostly-private-label grocers Lidl, Aldi, and Trader Joe’s were excluded in the analysis.
- Mostly-private-label grocers Lidl, Aldi, and Trader Joe’s took the top 3 spots in the Fresh category.
- Aldi and Lidl displayed consistent strategy across their assortment, coming in below the market average and occupying one of the top 3 slots in the private and fresh categories.
- H-E-B stayed in the top 4 in all 3 lists of private, national, and fresh categories.
Lidl led in lower prices at -32% for its private labels, beating Aldi, H-E-B and Kroger, who came in at -26%, -13% and -8% lower prices, respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, Vons trailed everyone else with the highest price index of +13% for private labels, followed by Publix at +10%.
Kroger and H-E-B Shine in National Brands
Because Trader Joe’s, Lidl, and Aldi carry a very small number of national brands in their stores, they were excluded from the national brands analysis. Kroger led with national brand pricing of -20%, followed by H-E-B and Target. Sprouts came in at +5% for national brands, followed by The Fresh Market at +2%.
Aldi Led the Way in Fresh Pricing
Aldi took home the top spot in lower pricing for Fresh items at -29% for Q4 2018, followed by Trader Joe’s at -22% and Lidl at -21%. Vons ranked fifth at -14%. Safeway and Publix charged the most in the last quarter of 2018, on average for the items in this study, with a +11% and +6% price index, respectively.
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