2015年经济学人 超市 商海无涯巧行舟（在线收听）

Supermarkets

Learning to be different

Some glimmers of hope for struggling supermarkets

RARELY have the Christmas results for Britain's supermarkets been awaited with such trepidation. Most of them, especially the market leader, Tesco, struggled in 2014. The hard-discount stores, Aldi and Lidl, continued to undercut them, gobbling up market share, while falling food prices ate into their profits. Would the weeks leading up to Christmas and New Year's Day, generally the strongest sales period, bring some relief?

He's making a list, checking it twice

The answer, so far, is mixed. Waitrose, the most upmarket grocer, did well. It made ￡728m (1.1 billion) over the five weeks to January 3rd, excluding fuel—7% more than in the same spell a year ago. By contrast like-for-like sales at Sainsbury's fell by 1.7% in the 14 weeks to January 3rd among stores that had been open at least a year. Tesco, which reported on January 8th, recorded another drop in sales, though by only 0.3% compared with the previous year. It is to close 43 stores. Analysts estimate that Asda, the second-biggest chain after Tesco, saw its market share fall by 1% in the three months to December.

Asda's boss, Andrew Clarke, has warned of more challenging times ahead. Yet the lesson from these results is clear. Grocers with a clearly defined position in the market will continue to prosper, but for those without one there is more pain to come. Thus Waitrose, for instance, has remained resolutely and distinctly posh. It has refused to chase the upstart discounters by slashing prices, as mid-market rivals have done.

Natalie Berg of Planet Retail, a research outfit, argues that the key to survival in a ferociously competitive groceries market is to offer the customer a brand that is “clear, targeted and consistent.” Waitrose, at the top end of the market, does this well, as do Lidl and Aldi at the bottom. The rest are stranded in the middle, trying to be all things to all people. This week, for instance, Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco announced further price cuts. That might fend off the discounters for a bit. It will also muddy perceptions of who their target customers really are.

But it is not all gloom for the supermarkets. A more clement economic environment should help all of them. Tumbling fuel prices and—a novelty, this—rising real wages will put more money in shoppers' pockets. The results also demonstrate that supermarkets are rewarded for a strong internet presence. Again, Waitrose has done well here: grocery sales through its online service grew by 26% over the Christmas period compared with a year ago. Its parent company, John Lewis, has had great success with a new click-and-collect service at its department stores, which allows customers to nominate a place to pick up their shopping. Most of the supermarkets are trying out new digital gizmos to make shopping easier. Waitrose is experimenting with a home-scanning device called Hiku. This will allow people to scan barcodes on Waitrose products at home to add them to their online shopping basket.

There are grounds for optimism even at Tesco, argues Bryan Roberts, an analyst at Kantar Retail. For a couple of years its stores in London have done better than those in the rest of the country. Store managers in the capital have enjoyed more autonomy to fill their shelves with products suited to the people who live or work in the local area. This process had become over-centralised, missing local trends; devolution seems to have helped reverse that. Simple, but effective.