As inflationary costs continue to impact the consumer packaged goods industry, more than 70% of manufacturers plan to increase their list price in the second half of 2022 — and more than 60% of retailers plan to pass nearly all of those increases on to shoppers, according to “Advantage Sales Outlook | June 2022,” based on the responses of 99 Advantage Sales clients and customers to online surveys between May 2 and May 16, 2022.
Just 2% of manufacturer respondents said they have taken no price increase since March 2020 — and more than one-third are taking their third or more price hike. The list-price hikes are planned even as nearly 60% of manufacturers report they’ve experienced unit volume declines over the past six months as they’ve increased list prices. One in five manufacturers have experienced unit volume declines of 6% or more.
Among the report’s other key findings:
- While 74% of manufacturers say they are likely to address inflation by reducing trade spending, the same percentage of retailers do not want manufacturers to do so. Retailers prefer manufacturers reduce SKUs (more than 90% prefer this strategy) and increase list prices (65% prefer) to address their increase in costs.
- Three-fourths of manufacturers have cut trade spending in the past 12 months — and four in 10 say they’ll continue to decrease this spending in the second half of 2022. If deflation happens, however, 80% of surveyed manufacturers plan to increase their trade spend.
- As shopper habits change, nearly half of retailers plan to reduce grocery and beauty SKUs, while close to one-third will expand the number of alcoholic beverages they carry.
- Despite anticipated supply chain challenges, nearly eight in 10 manufacturers say their supply levels will improve in the second half of 2022. Only 6% predict their supply will decline; 15% believe there will be no change.
- After the supply chain normalizes, most retailers (65%) believe their top driver of growth will be optimized promotions. More than 40% of food manufacturers say the same. Most (52%) nonfood manufacturers believe expanding distribution at existing customers will be a significant key to growth.