Sales of hand sanitiser soar as coronavirus fears grip shoppers

The latest research by Kantar shows a 7 per cent jump in liquid soap sales and a 10 per cent rise in household cleaner sales.

Recent news reports around the virus saw consumers take steps to ward off colds and flu, accelerating sales of hygiene and health products.

Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: “Given the media focus around the outbreak of COVID-19 in February, it’s unsurprising to see shoppers prudently protecting themselves from illness.

"The first thing to remember is we're looking at data until February 23 and the real public interest in the risk to public health has only picked up since that date.

"In the data we have got, it's very much focussed on cleaning products and healthcare. There's been a slight uptick in cleaning sprays, vitamins and minerals. Also oral headache pills, the likes of paracetamol and ibuprofen, have seen an uplift in sales."

It appears that the public is not panicking and Mr McKevitt said he has not seen any sign of stockpiling of food.

"Every retailer should have, or will have, done contingency planning in the last week or so around this," he said.

"If there is a restriction of movement through people being isolated, online is part of the solution, but it's not the whole solution as there's a limited number of delivery slots.

"There's only so many drivers. There's only so many trucks so if people do want to shop online they are going to have to book ahead because it's going to become a little bit more popular."

Asked whether supermarkets are asking suppliers to focus on main product lines and reduce niche lines, he said: "We're not seeing any signs of that. I can see the sense of that. Supermarkets are very adept at dealing with spikes in demand.

"The one thing they can't cope with is mass panic buying and the authorities should be careful to dampen that down, but I don't anticipate there being a major crisis of food and drink in this country.

"Yes some lines might be out of stock shortly, but if you can't get your favourite brand for one week, that hardly constitutes a national crisis."

The Kantar data showed that Morrisons was the worst performer out of the big four with sales down 2.0 per cent in the 12 weeks to February 23.

Asda's sales fell 1.2 per cent and Tesco was down 0.8 per cent although Sainsbury's saw sales rise 0.3 per cent as it returned to growth for the first time since October 2019.

"Morrisons are still offering more and more price cuts than their competitors," said Mr McKevitt.

"We've just seen a new round of price cuts come through in the data, which seems to be quite popular with shoppers actually, but more of an issue is Morrisons are not seeing a sales response in their not-promoted lines so yes, people love a deal, but it doesn't mean that everything else is coming off the shelves.

"Morrisons are still losing shoppers, but it's slowing down. They are losing fewer shoppers than some of their rivals now, which is good.

"Their premium The Best line is up 8 per cent. That's a pretty fantastic achievement - one of the fastest growing premium own-labels in the market."

Kantar said supermarket sales rose 0.7 per cent in the 12 weeks to February 23, which was the fastest increase since November last year.

In separate data, Nielsen said UK supermarkets saw small but positive growth in February, as total till sales rose 0.7 per cent during the last four weeks.

Mike Watkins, Nielsen’s UK head of retailer and business insight, said: “British grocery retailers will be pleased that since experiencing the lowest growth over the Christmas period since 2014, it appears that we are finally starting to see the green shoots of improvement.

“Despite dominating headlines, the impact from the spread of the Coronavirus has so far been limited, at this point restricted to a growth in sales for multi-purpose surface cleaners, which are up 8 per cent over the last four weeks.

"However, retailers would do well to keep an eye on this, as there is potential for consumers to begin stockpiling canned goods and other household cleaning products in the weeks to come.”