More than one third of Australia’s 13 million grocery buyers associate Aldi with low prices, ahead of all other supermarkets, according to the latest findings from Roy Morgan Research’s Single Source survey for the 12 months to August 2012.

The results come despite the widely promoted price discounting by the other major supermarkets. Thirty four per cent of grocery buyers surveyed associate Aldi with low prices, ahead of Coles (30 per cent), Woolworths (28 per cent) and IGA (10 per cent).

Norman Morris, industry communications director, Roy Morgan Research, said the long running Coles and Woolworths campaigns focussing on price have had an impact on supermarket customer perceptions over the last year and a half, particularly for Coles.

“Although Coles has enjoyed a significant uplift in their association with low prices over the last year and are now ahead of Woolworths, Aldi still leads on customer perceptions of low prices, maintaining their position ahead of all other supermarkets for the last five years, despite Coles’ heavy advertising campaign,” Morris said.

“At the other end of the scale, grocery buyers’ low price perceptions of IGA have remained largely unchanged over the last few years, but with the recent IGA Locked Down Low Prices campaign we might see an improvement in low price perceptions similar to that shown by the other major supermarkets.

“The key question now is will this simply dilute the low price message overall, or will pricing have to become more competitive for any supermarket to maintain customer perceptions of low prices.

“The recent plateau in customers associating the supermarkets with low prices could mean the advertising campaigns have reached a saturation point, and supermarkets may need to think about new ways to influence customer perceptions of low prices.”