UK Supermarkets during the Economic Recession.

摘要

After the emergence of the most recent economic recession, many large companies like Lehman Brothers and Woolworths went out of business. Although many industries showed clear signs of effects from the economic recession but U.K. supermarkets did not give any clear indication of economic recession effects. Therefore, this research was conducted to clear the confusion amongst the media, public and supermarkets. The aim of the research was to find whether or not the current economic recession has affected supermarkets based in the U.K. In the research a literature review was implemented to find out about the economic recession and supermarkets. The literature review also helped to retrieve recent financial performances of the selected supermarkets. All the data gained from the literature review aided the research in devising suitable questions for the primary research. In the primary research, two hypermarkets of Asda and Tesco, two middle sized supermarkets of Sainsbury's and Morrison's along with discount supermarkets of Aldi and Lidl were targeted. Shop floor managers from all the selected supermarkets were requested to participate in face to face interviews. The data gained from face to face interviews was compared to the recent financial performances of all the supermarkets in order to eliminate any possible bias on the part of interviewed managers. The primary data was also compared to the literature review to find that the U.K. supermarkets have indeed been affected by the recent economic recession. Despite the success of the research in retrieving a key finding of the supermarkets being affected in terms of change in market share between the four larger supermarkets and the discount supermarkets, there were a few limitations in the research such as time scale, possible bias from supermarket managers and a lack of previous research in this area. Although there were limitations within the methodology of the research, it is the belief of the author that even if the limitations were rectified, the outcome would have been the same.