Why many people who shop at Aldi or Lidl aren't much better off

New research reveals shoppers are only seeing a small saving.

Shopping at discounters Aldi and Lidl is only saving many of us an average of £5 a month, new research has suggested.

Impact Research spoke to more than 1,000 shoppers who have turned to Aldi and Lidl in recent months. It found that while most had switched to the discounters in order to save cash, the actual saving was fairly insignificant.

According to the research, shoppers who stuck with the bigger supermarkets spent an average of £240 a month on their groceries. However, those who switched to Aldi and Lidl in order to save money spent £235 – just £5 less.

Why we aren’t saving more?

Impact Research believes that part of the problem is the way we use the discounters. It found that we tend to use Aldi and Lidl for ‘top-up’ or item-specific shops such as special deals on certain items – this was the case for 73% of Lidl shoppers and Aldi shoppers.

Because we only do a small proportion of our shopping there, we aren’t maximising the savings. Instead, those who use the discounters tend to be more "promiscuous", according to Impact Research, spreading their shopping across a range of stores.

However, that may be about to change. One in five discount shoppers said they plan to shop at Aldi and Lidl more frequently, so the proportion of their monthly grocery spend at the discounters is likely to rise.

Last week figures from Kantar Worldpanel revealed that both discounters have seen their market share grow to new record highs. Aldi now accounts for 5.6% of the market, while Lidl has moved to 4%.

But wherever you shop, groceries are getting cheaper. The latest Groceries Tracker from MySupermarket revealed that the cost of the average basket dropped 1% in July.

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