Friday 14 December 2012

Can’t say I’m surprised

I had to raise a wry smile at this report that the Scottish ban on multibuy alcohol discounts was actually leading to people buying wine more often.

Accolade Wines’ latest WineNation Report, which combines consumer insight with figures from research companies Nielsen, CGA and Kantar, claims Scottish consumers have been buying wine more often since the legislation was introduced last October.

Accolade claims this has helped to attract new drinkers to the wine category.

The report found that consumers who bought the most wine have increased purchases by 1.3% since last October, with consumers defined as ‘light shoppers’ increasing their purchase frequency by 34.4%.

Overall, wine volumes dropped 3.1% in Scotland between July 2011 and July 2012, broadly in line with a UK decline of 2.8% – despite there being no multi-buy bans in England or Wales.

It’s clear that all this has done is to shift consumption patterns around, and the idea that multibuys lead people to buy and drink more than they otherwise would is groundless. So what on earth is the point of repeating it south of the border?

1 comment:

  1. The Aldi model of no multibuys but cheaper unit prices for products is a better model. You get what you want, cheap and don't have to stock up.

    ReplyDelete

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