C-store basket spend rises 11% in final quarter as Brits continue to shop local

Continuing on a pandemic trend, Britons stayed local in the final quarter of 2020, which has seen a festive period with increasing restrictions, data from PayPoint showed.

The average basket spend at local convenience stores soared to £8.47 during October-December 2020, a 4 per cent increase on £8.14 in the previous quarter and an 11 per cent year-on-year increase, up from £7.64 in the last three months of 2019, according to data collected from stores using PayPoint One’s scanning functionality.

As the nation coped with the November lockdown, the ‘non-food, paper and disposables’ category saw the sharpest growth vs Q3, with a 22 per cent increase in sales. A toilet paper brand has been the biggest seller in this category, followed by second-class stamps, in demand to help send Christmas cards. Meanwhile, mobile phone calling cards saw 18 per crent growth quarter-on-quarter.

“The announcement of another national lockdown in November and general guidance saw the population turn to their local convenience stores once more. The data shows that while Christmas was different this year, seasonal merriment and a desire to celebrate with loved ones, albeit remotely, were still pillars of our end-of-year plans,” commented Nick Wiles, chief executive of PayPoint.

Red Bull replaced Volvic water in PayPoint’s Convenience Basket Register, a quarterly glimpse of top two sellers across six key product categories: bread & cakes, chilled & fresh food, confectionary, frozen food, grocery and off licence.

The big sellers for Q4 2020 were: