Lidl announces major pre-Christmas price push

Lidl has announced a £250m investment in price cuts to help shoppers save ahead of Christmas.

Prices have been dropped on over 1,000 everyday products since January, with more set to be added in the run up to Christmas. This builds upon the retailer’s current value proposition, driven through its loyalty app.

Lidl is currently the only discounter with a loyalty rewards scheme, Lidl Plus. The app offers new coupons each week and rewards customers for their spending, from free in-store bakery sweet treats and money off shops to ‘Pick of the Week’ offers.

On the Christmas price investment, chief commercial officer at Lidl GB, Richard Bourns, said the grocer “firmly believes” everyone should have access to healthy and affordable food, which is why the grocer claims to be “offering the lowest prices in the market”. According to Bourns, Lidl is also “on a mission” to open new stores nationwide.

The supermarket has seen success in recent years, with the latest figures from Worldpanel by Numerator dubbing Lidl the joint fastest growing grocer in the UK, tied with Ocado.

Both saw a 10.7% uptick in sales over the 12 weeks to 10 August. The data also showed Lidl’s market share had increased 0.5 percentage points to 8.3% – close behind Morrisons at 8.4%.

Lidl and Ocado fastest growing grocers as Tesco dominates market share

Last year, Lidl exceeded £1bn in turnover for the four weeks to 24 December, as sales rose 7% year-on-year. This year, it is predicting 22 December to be its busiest trading day.

In February, Lidl launched a TikTok Shop pop-up selling a limited drop of 3,000 “high protein” bundles. Describing itself as the first supermarket to sell on the platform in the UK, Lidl insisted it was a “small scale promotion” to support its expansion of the high protein range and not a “full scale or permanent ecommerce proposition”. The retailer currently doesn’t offer online delivery to customers in the UK.

Value remains a hot topic for grocers. Asda dropped its Aldi Price Match scheme in a return to its rollback proposition at the start of the year.

This week, Asda also announced it is cutting the cost of 956 everyday family favourite grocery products in-store and online, including pasta, cooking sauces, tea and coffee. Prices will be reduced by an average of 6%, in addition to the 3452 Rollback deals currently available.

Meanwhile, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have been increasing personalisation of Clubcard and Nectar offers to make both schemes more relevant to customers.

In March, Co-op announced it would price match Aldi for the first time on over 100 everyday essentials aimed at members shopping in store and online, taking the retailer’s investment in lowering prices to almost £170m over the past two years.

Last week, Morrisons also announced a new “spend-stretch” promotion for More Card members in franchise stores, following its launch of More Card prices for Deliveroo shoppers in July.