With more South African consumers getting online via smartphones, and digital advertising increasing in response, brands often question the relevance of print advertising. Growing bodies of research point to the fact that print ads are still a vital part of the advertising mix, especially for retailers, where recent European research showed that removing printed retail catalogues had a detrimental impact on consumer store visits.
The research took place in the Netherlands where Dutch retailer Lidl, the sixth largest retailer in the world, stopped delivering its store flyers in the province of Utrecht at the beginning of 2023.
Researchers from three universities assessed changes in grocery shopping behaviour in Utrecht households following the move, looking at aspects such as the number of shopping trips undertaken, total expenditure on promotional items and the number of units bought on promotion.
The findings showed that there was a marked impact on households’ shopping behaviour. Notably, households decreased their shopping trips to Lidl, resulting in reductions in expenditure in the store, while simultaneously increasing their visits to and expenditures at competitor stores. Those were generally their primary retail stores that they regularly visited.
‘Households appear to replace their purchases from Lidl, some of which they might have purchased on promotion, with purchases from other retailers not on promotion. For households for which Lidl is not the primary retailer, we find negative effects on all dimensions of shopping behaviour,’ says the research report.
An interesting finding was the impact of promoting digital flyers as an alternative to print flyers.
Households that adopted digital flyers at the time that Lidl stopped distributing print store flyers substantially reduced their shopping at Lidl. The researchers calculated that in the typical case, retiring store flyers could backfire so much that investing in print flyers was still necessary.
The research team concluded that hard discount retailers eliminating print flyers should expect households to change their shopping behaviour and take their shopping to competitors. Its findings suggested that currently, digital flyers could not fully substitute for print flyers.
The university researchers also referenced other cases where withdrawing printed retail promotional collateral had had a negative impact on sales.
Canadian retailer Loblaw reintroduced its printed flyer after reportedly recording a 2% drop in its share of consumers’ shopping trips (Retail Brew 2022). US Giant Eagle discontinued its print store flyer in 2023, reversing course just three months later to meet ‘high demand’ (Supermarket News 2023). Similarly, Aldi discontinued its store flyer in one region of Germany, but reversed that decision four months later (Lebensmittelzeitung 2024).
Separate analysis by research house Accurat of the Aldi decision to halt print flyers showed there was a 13% drop in store visits almost immediately after the flyers were stopped.
The number of store visits per shopper also declined significantly in the region where the flyers were stopped – by more than 20%. There was no change to the frequency of store visits in areas where flyer distribution continued.
These findings prove there is a clear connection between promotional retail flyer distribution and store visits, with flyers not only encouraging purchases of promotional items, but securing a higher frequency of store visits too.
The university research team also noted the positive relationship between printed flyers and consumers: in the Netherlands, 95% of all households that received printed flyers read them, 86% used them and 54% said that they would miss them if they were discontinued.
Mobile use and online activity among South Africans may be increasing, but digital retail flyers are unlikely to become the go-to promotional medium in the foreseeable future given the high cost of data in this country.
The university and Accurat research confirms what South African surveys like Caxton’s Roots have previously found – consumers actively read their local papers, including the promotional flyers inside, to access the best discounts and specials when shopping in their local community.
It also reaffirms the vital role of print advertising in connecting with consumers and positively influencing purchase decisions – a critical function in emerging economies like ours where for the majority of consumers, every cent counts.
