Survey: Citizens prefer discount markets more

While household consumption expenditures were affected by the increase in prices, one of the solutions that citizens resorted to was to use discount markets more, with their share in households' grocery expenditures increasing more than 3 percent in 2022, according to a survey conducted by Ipsos.

Households went shopping 204 times between January and November 2022 and spent an average of 85 liras on these visits, the market research and consulting firm said.

An average household spent 84 of each 100 Turkish Liras for "food and beverages," nine for "personal care products" and seven for "household products," the survey found, noting that the share of "food and beverages" increased due to the families' saving on some non-priority products.

The share of discount markets in households' grocery expenditures increased by more than 3 percent, according to the survey.

Accordingly, market-branded products were preferred more especially in basic food products such as eggs, sugar, pasta, flour and personal care and cleaning products compared to previous years.

While the amount paid for the same products increased by 85 percent compared to last year, the frequency of shopping decreased in all sales channels and main product groups, except for national chains and discount markets as there were one to three products in three out of every four shopping baskets, the survey revealed.

Türkiye's largest supermarket chains this month announced that they would freeze or reduce the prices of thousands of consumer products during the month of January. Smaller local supermarkets and retailers also followed suit.

The annual inflation rate sharply slipped from 84.4 percent in November 2022 to 64.3 percent last month.