A sizeable majority (57%) of consumers now use discounters at least once a month for their grocery shopping, up 13% on 2017 figures, new research reveals.

An online survey of 1,000 shoppers by Shoppercentric found that the shift towards discounters coincides with 26% of respondents saying they have noticed prices increasing ‘a lot’, and 56% noticing small increases.

Shoppers primarily attribute these price increases to the state of the economy (54%) and Brexit (50%).

In addition, three in five shoppers are now buying own label “where I can to keep costs down”, and 50% are going out of their way to find the best prices. As such, shoppers are using an increasing number of stores to do their grocery shopping – on average they bought from five stores or websites “in the previous fortnight”, an increase of one since 2017.

However, the ‘little and often’ trend appears to have reached its ceiling, with 16% saying they have abandoned weekly main shops in favour of shopping little and often – the same figure as last year.

Shoppercentric managing director Danielle Pinnington said: “Retailers and brands must keep a finger on the shopper pulse and appreciate that each customer is now using a range of strategies to cope with increasing pressures on household budgets.

“Which categories or sectors will suffer most this year is likely to depend on how they react to changing shopper needs.”