Tesco to be ‘most visited retailer this Christmas’

Despite a turbulent year, Tesco will still retain its leading position for the Christmas shop, with 34.5% of consumers planning to use the retailer.

More than half of consumers (51.4%) will spend more than £150 on Christmas food and groceries, Webloyalty claimed.

Over Christmas, spending looks set to grow by 2.5% since last year to £16.5bn.

‘Incredibly important’

The Christmas shopping period remained “incredibly important” to the UK economy, Webloyalty’s md for northern Europe Guy Chiswick said.

“Looking through the research it is positive to see that Christmas spending is continuing to grow year on year,” he said.

“This is partly due to low inflation and heavy price competition within the grocery sector, which has eased some of the pressure on household finances in recent months and helped to boost consumer confidence.”

This increase in spending could make this Christmas the best for retailers since the recession, Chiswick claimed.

Tesco launched a cost-cutting plan in January after like-for-like sales fell 0.2% over the six-week Christmas period.

Where shoppers will spend

Morrisons, which reported “disastrous” Christmas trading of like-for-like sales down 5.6%, was set to be the seventh most visited supermarket this Christmas.

Sainsbury will be the second most visited retailer for Christmas food shopping, according to the Webloyalty survey which asked consumers where they planned to shop.

Third most popular will be Asda, followed by Aldi, Marks & Spencer (M&S), Lidl, Morrisons, Iceland, Waitrose and the Co-operative.

The average spend on Christmas gifts will be £282.70 – an increase of 3.6% on last year, Webloyalty claimed.

More than a third will not start their Christmas shop until December, it added.

However, software firm SAS claimed one in five British shoppers would buy gifts during Black Friday Week, which runs from November 23 to 27.