As previously seen in our last Alcohol Top Seller Report (TSR), there are big differences between the top sellers in different regions throughout the UK.

Differences in the Alcohol Category are particularly pronounced when looking at South West England (SW) and Scotland, located at different ends of the UK. Some differences include the price (affected by MUP in Scotland) and cultural popularity of best selling products in each region, the prevalence of price marks, the variety of the best selling products of each region, and the movement of the products in the category.

Our top ten lists are based on the sales of 2,887 stores all using our ShopMate EPoS terminal with 273 retailers in South West England and 273 retailers in Scotland.

Price and Cultural Popularity

The two best selling products, in terms of value sales, are both more popular than in the rest of the UK. In the SW, Lynx Super Lager is the most popular product but doesn’t feature in the TSR for any other region. In Scotland, the same effect is seen but with Buckfast Tonic Wine, which is the best selling alcoholic product in the region but is also popular in Northern Ireland. As in our last TSR Analysis, Buckfast Tonic Wine is the Number 1 best selling alcoholic product nationally, perhaps because of its popularity in these two regions.

The most popular alcoholic products in Scotland tend to be far more expensive than those in the South West per item sale.

At first glance, this may appear to relate to minimum unit pricing (MUP). However, the average price per unit charged for Lynx Super Lager in SW is typically compliant with the Minimum Unit Price of 50 pence in Scotland. This suggests instead, that it is the cultural popularity of these products, regardless of their price, which is driving up value sales in Scotland.

Prevalence of Price Marks

There are other differences between the regions. In the SW, nine out of the ten products in the TSR are price marked, while in Scotland, this is the case for only four of the top ten. This could be due to the price and promotion limitations north of the border, leading to fewer price marked products in Scotland than its southern counterpart.

Variety and the Movement of the Products

The TSR in the SW is also much more volatile and changeable than in Scotland. Examples of this include such products as Hardy’s Chardonnay and Stella Artois moving down a rank each, and Carlsberg and San Miguel which have both moved up with new entries of Gordons Gin and Chekov Vodka. By contrast, in the Scottish TSR, culturally popular products remain in the report with little movement in rank, apart from Smirnoff Vodka and Tennent’s Lager which have swapped places. This suggests that brand loyalty in Scotland may be stronger than in other parts of the UK.

Where does our data come from?

We have over 4000 tills in almost 2,900 stores throughout the United Kingdom. We collect and collate this data to form the Category Top Seller Report, looking into the best-selling products sold in convenience stores across the UK nationally, and in the 12 different regions specifically.

Access our full Top Seller Report here.