FMCG UK Price Comparison (September 2019): AmazonFresh Undercutting Leading Rivals by at Least 5.5%

Edge by Ascential has conducted a price comparison analysis matching a minimum of 3,514 branded products from AmazonFresh to Asda, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

The price comparison encompasses the following categories:

• Baby
• Beer, Wines & Spirits
• Grocery (Ambient, Fresh and Frozen Foods and Drinks)
• Health & Beauty
• Home Care (Household Cleaning, Laundry and Pet Care)

 
The analysis only includes products where there is an exact match and does not include Own Label SKUs. This is a shelf price comparison and therefore does not include multi-buy promotions.
 
The price gap widens between AmazonFresh and rival supermarkets
On September 1, AmazonFresh was between 5.5% and 14.1% cheaper than its leading rivals. All the supermarkets, except for Waitrose, had a greater average price gap this month than on July 1. 

Asda was again the closest in price with an average price difference of 5.5%. It was also again followed by Morrisons with a price difference of 7.6%. Waitrose was the only supermarket that had a narrower average price difference this month, it moved from 14.9% more expensive on July 1 to 14.1% on September 1.

Morrisons saw the greatest change in price matches. On July 1, 27.6% of its comparable range price matched to AmazonFresh, this increased to 44.1 percent on September 1.

Sainsbury’s saw the greatest increase in price gap, this was because of a decrease in the number of price matches that led to AmazonFresh being cheaper on more products. On the other end of the spectrum, the price gap reduction between AmazonFresh and Waitrose was led by an increase in price matches at the expense of the percentage of products for which AmazonFresh offered a lower price.
 

The price gap from AmazonFresh increased for all retailers in the Grocery category compared to our previous analysis. The biggest increase was on Ocado and Sainsbury’s where the average price difference increased by 2.0% and 1.9% respectively.

The price difference overall grew the most in the Home Care category. Asda, Ocado, Sainsbury’s and Tesco all saw a significant widening in the price gap in this category. However, that average price difference between Waitrose and AmazonFresh fell 3.2%.
 

Asda retaining Rollback prices?

Although the average price gap between Asda and AmazonFresh widen, we have seen recent evidence of Asda retaining the price of Rollback promotions, even after the deal has ended.

Looking at all of the Rollback promotions that have ended in the last month we can see that Asda has retained the Rollback price for 10.6% of the promotions. Breaking it down by category shows more than half of these products are Ambient Grocery products, followed by Home Care (14.3%). Most of these Ambient products were Cold Drinks, Snacks or Food Cupboard items such as Cooking Sauces.
 

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