The data shows switching behaviour among shoppers has accelerated since 2023, with June this year marking a new high – 41% of consumers moved away from their primary grocer. Discounters are benefitting most from this shift as shoppers manage their budgets, claiming a market share of 20% in June, higher than their 2025 average of 19.3%.
Meanwhile, cross-shopping is now the norm, with 80% of consumers using two or more grocers in June and the average shopper visiting 3.2 different grocers.
Reward noted that these behaviours reflect the growing importance of price, availability, and perceived value in shaping grocery choices – key themes explored in its newly released report – The Trends Reshaping Grocery Spend – which analyses six years of evolving consumer behaviour.
The insights highlight a series of trends that have become firmly embedded in how UK consumers shop for groceries. Key takeaways include:
- Top-up shopping dominates: In 2025, 67% of grocery transactions were smaller, frequent shops – up from 61.5% in 2019. The big weekly trolley shop is increasingly being replaced by ‘little and often’ purchases that reflect immediate household needs.
- Online is embedded: Online grocery shopping accounted for 11.4% of spend in June, a figure that has remained stable post-pandemic, indicating online is now a standard channel for all types of shopping missions, not just a contingency.
- Value is more than price: While discounters gain ground, full-range grocers that invest in personalised supermarket loyalty schemes and convenient multichannel experiences have maintained around 42% of market share since 2019. Consumers are weighing price alongside quality, convenience, and the benefits offered through loyalty.
“In this environment, deeply understanding customer behaviour and market dynamics is more critical than ever. Retailers that harness data-driven personalisation and activate contextual spend insights through commerce media strategies will be best placed to drive meaningful engagement, long-term loyalty, and sustained growth in an increasingly complex landscape.”
NamNews Implications:
- Worth keeping in mind that the same could be said of supplier branding.
- i.e. Brand loyals now prepared to ‘shop around’ for other brands and own-label equivalents in a search for real value, rather than ‘price’.
- More inclined to identify and criticise instances of shrinkflation and skimpflation.
- ‘paying more and more, for less and less)
- And prepared to ‘tell a friend’.
- Unprecedented change, indeed…
