Tuesday 22 September 2026 · 3 min read
Deals grew 7%, five times faster than full-price sales
Shoppers spent 7% more on grocery promotions in the four weeks to 6 September than a year earlier. Full-price sales grew 1.4%, according to Worldpanel by Numerator.
Shoppers are sticking with brands and waiting for the deal
Brands had a good month. Worldpanel's latest figures had them growing faster than own label, only the second time that's happened in a year. That surprised me, with petrol at a 2026 high and parents paying for school uniforms.
How did brands grow while budgets were this tight? The first chart shows how: through promotions. Shoppers kept buying the brands they like, but more of them waited for a deal first. I'd call that loyalty with conditions attached.
Two other numbers from last week fit the same picture. ONS food inflation was 1.3% in August, the lowest since 2021, so shelf prices are rising, but only slowly. And NIQ's count of grocery items sold dipped 0.1%, the first fall since April.
If you manage a brand, the question for Q4 is how much of your growth is coming through promotions, and what happens to it in January when the deals ease off.
Overheard this week
“It's not gone up, it's still £30 when I put £30 in the tank.”
They were replying to the Sheffield Star's post about petrol hitting 164.4p a litre, the highest this year. A joke, and also how a lot of people budget: a fixed amount, and less in the tank when prices rise.
Also worth knowing
Retail volumes rose 0.5% in August and were 2.4% up on a year earlier, near June's high, according to the ONS on Friday. Online took 28.8% of sales.
Parents spent 12.4% less on school uniform per shopper this year, £54.53 on average, Worldpanel found, as more of them used deals and bought second-hand.
Lidl and Ocado keep pulling away. In Worldpanel's 12 weeks to 6 September, Lidl grew 8% to an 8.7% share, and Ocado was the fastest-growing grocer for the 30th period running.
Coming up
Friday 25 September: GfK consumer confidence for September
End of September: BRC shop price monitor
Thursday 1 October: the energy price cap rises 4% to £1,723 a year
That's it for this week. Reply and tell me what you're seeing.
Chris