Waitrose vs. M&S: 'battle for the middle class'

It's "shopping trolleys at dawn" for Waitrose and Marks & Spencer, the country's "most aspirational supermarkets", said columnist Xanthe Clay in The Telegraph.

Marks & Spencer is successfully chipping away at Waitrose's traditional customer base, growing its market share to 3.8% in January to match its rival for the first time, according to NielsenIQ data.

The figures are a "long way" from supermarket giant Tesco, which commands over a quarter of the market, and the rest of the so-called "big six" – Sainsbury's, Asda, Aldi, Lidl and Morrisons – which dominate the UK's grocery spend. 

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But M&S and Waitrose now find themselves "scrabbling" for the same middle- and upper-class customer base: "people who can afford to spend a little more on higher welfare meat and Italian peaches, as well as (whisper it) wanting artisan loaves without the hassle of queuing at the bakers", said Clay.

Posh shoppers 'mixing and matching'

As the two posh supermarkets battle it out for well-to-do customers, it begs the question: "What is a Waitrose person? And how are they different from an M&S person?" asked Matt Rudd in The Sunday Times.

"At my Waitrose in Kent, it's bumper-to-bumper Range Rovers and shelf-to-shelf Duchy Originals. My local M&S is more electric Mini – much trickier to get the Evoque out unscratched, no boot space for corgi-food". But two towns over, it's the other way around – I'm therefore "not convinced the shop defines the shopper", said Rudd. 

Yet from this "small sample of class chatterers", two things are clear. Firstly, most people "are not swapping Waitrose directly for M&S" but "downgrading" from posher supermarkets to cheaper ones. Secondly, "they're mixing and matching", opting to do their "big shops" in cheaper stores such as Aldi, before purchasing their "cheese and canapés from M&S". 

Loyalty-scheme customers unimpressed

With food prices 25% higher than they were just two years ago, even Waitrose and M&S shoppers are "watching their wallets", agreed Clay. 

And both supermarkets are attempting to deliver value for their customers. Last October, Marks & Spencer announced price cuts on more than 200 of its products, followed by another 65 cuts at the end of January, with, the supermarket said, "an average reduction of 6%". Waitrose also started cutting prices earlier this year, unveiling a £30 million plan to lower the price of more than 200 of its own-brand products.

Yet if Waitrose wants to hold on to its spot as the top choice for middle- to upper-class customers then it may have to do more. "Clever marketing" has seen M&S become "an unlikely star" on social media platform TikTok, "where it's not hard to find influencers – from mums to students – talking about the bargains that can be found", said The Guardian. 

Waitrose has also fallen in the estimation of some long-time customers for scaling back its popular weekly personalised discount vouchers, said the Mail Online. The supermarket has changed its loyalty scheme so that the once-guaranteed weekly vouchers now only arrive from "time to time". 

Waitrose has insisted the changes have brought its programme in line with "industry standards", but long-time customers are far from impressed with the quality of the new offer: "Just wondering Waitrose why for the second week in a row my vouchers consist of a choice of a jar of olives and some seeded malted bread," tweeted one customer. "What have I done to upset you?"