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H-E-B Tops dunnhumby’s Annual Grocery Rankings

Survey also shows heightened competitive intensity and greater consumer scrutiny will continue into 2024.

Published

1 year ago

January 15, 2024

PETS+ Staff

H-E-B, which bears the initials of its founder, has 339 stores in its home state of Texas. PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO

H-E-B (San Antonio) has been named the top U.S. Grocery Retailer in the seventh annual dunnhumby Retailer Preference Index (RPI). That nationwide study examines the approximately $1 trillion U.S. grocery market, and lauded H-E-B for having the “strongest customer value proposition for the long-term.”

H-E-B is the first grocery retailer to be recognized three times as number one in the RPI ranking, surpassing Amazon and Trader Joe’s, which both ranked as top grocer twice.

Amazon (Seattle, 2) and Costco (Issaquah, Wash., 3) round out the top three grocers in the U.S. for a second year in a row.

The seven other retailers in the top 10 are:

4) Market Basket (Tewksbury, Mass.)

5) Sam’s Club (Bentonville, Ark.)

6) Wegman’s (Rochester, N.Y.)

7) Aldi (Essen, Germany)

8) Shoprite (Edison, N.J.)

9) Walmart Neighborhood Market (Bentonville, Ark.)

10) Walmart (Bentonville, Ark.)

“Knowing your customer and your competitive positioning regarding customer needs will be critical for retailers to scratch out any organic growth in 2024,” said Matt O’Grady, dunnhumby’s President of the Americas. “Customers are re-evaluating their opinions of retailers more than ever and that will only intensify in the coming months due to the economic headwinds facing consumers. In this year’s RPI, we illuminate how the consumer views the grocery market, and how different retailers are meeting the general population’s needs as well as the needs of different consumer segments.”.

dunnhumby officials say the company’s RPI is the only approach to ranking grocers that combines financial results with customer perception. It includes the largest 65 retailers in the industry that sell everyday food and non-food household items. The financial data used in the dunnhumby model comes from Edge Ascential, and the customer perception data is sourced from dunnhumby’s annual survey of more than 10,000 American grocery shoppers.

The company says the five drivers of the customer value proposition are, in order: 1) Price, Promotions, and Rewards, 2) Quality, 3) Digital, 4) Operations, and 5) Speed and Convenience.

Click here for more from the dunnhumby study.

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