Supermarket clothes: what makes George a top brand?
Asda is the third biggest supermarket chain in the UK by market share, after Tesco and Sainsbury’s. However, its own label of clothes, George, is likely the most popular supermarket fashion brand among UK consumers.
To check this assumption we ran a multi-option steer* asking consumers which supermarket brands they buy clothes from. The four options were Asda’s George, Tesco’s F&F, Sainsbury’s Tu, and Morrison’s Nutmeg. Consumers were only shown the brand name and not the related supermarket:
Over 85% of consumers stated that they buy clothes by George, making it the top supermarket fashion brand in our steer. According to marketing literature, George has built up a reputation for quality, style and value. Highlighted brand priorities are saving customers money and offering “the best value, affordable and inspirational clothing for their family”. Based on this statement, we asked Asda shoppers about their single top motivation to buy clothes by George:
The majority of Asda shoppers are indeed motivated by value-for-money when buying clothes by George. Besides being a recognition for finding the right balance between quality and price, this result shows that the retailer is aware of what consumers want and expect.
In an attempt to measure George’s pricing policy against consumer expectations, we launched a Qualified ‘Would Pay’ Pricing steer, showing Asda shoppers, who are parents of school-age children, an everyday necessity – kids’ black ankle socks, pack of 10.
According to the steer, £3 is the minimum profit-maximising price, provided that the unit cost is below £0.80. For a unit cost between £0.80 and £1.70 the suggested profit-maximising price is £3.50. This result shows that Asda has kept the actual product price, which is £3, at the very minimum, confirming that the retailer is making efforts to meet value-for-money expectations.
In the single-answer steer we first ran, more than 13% of Asda shoppers chose convenient shopping as the single most important reason to buy clothes by George. This is a significant motive, especially for consumers over 45, a fifth of whom (19.83%) saw it as more important than value-for-money.
For many consumers convenient shopping includes both in-store and online experiences. According to Asda, George.com is “one of the fastest growing online fashion businesses serving over 800,000 customers a week“. We asked Asda shoppers in a multi-answer steer whether they buy clothes by George in-store, online or both:
Nearly 40% of Asda shoppers buy George-branded clothes online. A free click & collect service is available from Asda stores, however, the retailer might benefit from providing collection points outside its store locations in future, to make online shopping even more convenient.
Currently George is the UK’s fourth biggest fashion retailer in terms of market share, first among the supermarket chains. It is a key competitor in clothing retail, providing entry level pricing across menswear, womenswear and childrenswear. George is likely to retain this position in future, as long as it keeps prices competitive and increases its online presence further.
*Steers were run in June 2019
Header photo by Tiia Monto.