Popular retail channels
In a recent finding, supermarkets emerged as the most popular retail outlet accounting for 42 percent of the total food retail sales in the Philippines. Apart from its proximity to where customers live and work, supermarkets offer a range of products, both fresh and pre-packaged, at market prices. Ranked by sales, Robinsons Supermarket was the leading supermarket in 2021, followed closely by SM Supermarket and Save More Supermarket.Retail sales on other modern retailing channels such as hypermarkets and warehouse clubs have also been seeing year-on-year growth, except for a slight decrease in 2021. Modern retailing has been taking off, especially as such outlets continue to expand in other cities and provinces nationwide. Hypermarkets have also been expanding to rural provinces. In 2021, Puregold was the leading hypermarket, followed by SM Hypermarket and Super8 Grocery Warehouse.
Although modern retail channels have dominated the food retailing scene, traditional retail continues to fill in the immediate demand for essential goods of consumers. Among the most popular retail channels were sari-sari stores, usually located within the shopkeeper’s residence. They typically apply a 10 percent markup and allow customers to buy items in units rather than the whole package. For example, customers can purchase a lower-price sachet instead of an entire bottle of soy sauce.
