Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Convenience sector was in a healthy position and growth was on the up. With lockdown restrictions coming and going for most of 2020, the sector continued to expand as consumers began to shop in local shops more regularly.
In order to get a full view of how the environment has changed over the past year, and how it has impacted retailers, we spoke to Jonathan Short, Account Manager for Pernod Ricard UK, as he shared his thoughts on the trends impacting Convenience and the things brands can do to sell more in Convenience in the current climate.
We asked him four questions:
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How has the retail environment changed in Convenience over the past year?
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How have these changes impacted the retailer?
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What consumer trends have you seen arise recently in Convenience?
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What opportunities are there for brands to sell more in Convenience?
Read on to see what he had to say in part one of our interview, and find out how to download the full interview.
About Jonathan Short
How has the retail environment changed in Convenience changed over the course of the past year?
2020 was tough across the whole retail sector in general.
When it comes to Convenience there have been some big changes and I think this has been largely influenced by three things:
- Covid-19 is obviously a big one
- Brexit
- More of a focus on healthy lifestyle
In terms of Covid-19, obviously that’s a big topic and we’ve seen a huge spike in Convenience sales over the past year, particularly in the early days of lockdown as many shoppers were either unwilling or unable to go to large supermarkets.
We saw consumers going to their local Convenience stores more frequently because they wanted to avoid queues in supermarkets or simply because they wanted to avoid them altogether for safety reasons, and this clearly resulted in increased Convenience sales. What we've seen since then is that as restrictions eased, consumers remained loyal to those same Convenience stores.
To find out what other insight Jonathan has, download the interview now.
