With consumers still concerned about high prices at the grocery store, there is some good news coming from the industry that will appeal to value-conscious shoppers: Retailers are focusing on private brand offerings and promotions and almost half of CPG manufacturers say they are not planning any price increases in the next six months.<\/p>\n
Those findings and more are based on data from the newly released Advantage Outlook 2024 report surveying executives at dozens of CPG manufacturers and grocery retailers.<\/p>\n
\u201cValue means different things to different consumers,\u201d says Jill Blanchard, president of enterprise client solutions for Advantage Solutions. \u201cIt could mean a deeper discount. It could mean private brands. It could mean a lower everyday price or buying a larger size. What we\u2019re seeing in the Advantage Outlook is a variety of growth strategies that manufacturers and retailers are planning geared toward providing value to the consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manufacturers’ top three strategies to deliver value to shoppers include promotions (66%), larger pack sizes (40%) and marketing the cost-effectiveness of brands and categories (37%). While retailers will also focus on promotions (47%) and larger pack sizes (53%), their top strategy by a wide margin is private brand production (75%).<\/p>\n
Digging deeper into how high-performing retailers are succeeding, Blanchard says they are raising their everyday prices less than the lower-performing retailers, they sell a larger selection of private brands, carry more items and have more quality merchandising and deeper discounts.<\/p>\n
When it comes to unit volume growth in their businesses, CPG manufacturers are far more optimistic than retailers this year, with almost 80% of manufacturers planning for growth for their business while just under half of retailers expressed optimism.<\/p>\n
There is less optimism about growth for the overall CPG industry from manufacturers and retailers, however \u2014 just 54% of manufacturers expect growth, most of that modest, while 44% of retailers predict CPG industry growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an interesting difference between how manufacturers feel about their own growth compared to overall CPG growth, dropping from 80% optimistic to a little bit over 50%,\u201d Blanchard says. \u201cThat 80% planning for 1%-4% growth is pretty bullish and probably an extension of the overconfidence that we saw in manufacturers during the holiday season when they also predicted unit volume growth that didn\u2019t come to fruition. We actually saw a 2% decline in unit volume in the fourth quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a look at other highlights from the retail analytics data<\/strong> in the Advantage Outlook:<\/p>\n The Advantage Outlook, a quarterly survey that includes responses from senior-level executives at dozens of the leading retailers and consumer products companies across the U.S., is produced in collaboration with Nielsen IQ and offers unique insights into the top trends in retail.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With consumers still concerned about high prices at the grocery store, there is some good news coming from the industry that will appeal to value-conscious shoppers: Retailers are focusing on private brand offerings and promotions and almost half of CPG manufacturers say they are not planning any price increases in the next six months. Those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2920,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"mrktblog-category":[41],"class_list":["post-2919","mrktblog-posts","type-mrktblog-posts","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","mrktblog-category-advantage-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n