Improved treatment of grocery suppliers despite poor Amazon performance
Read about the GCA 2024 Groceries Sector Survey results.
Fewer grocery suppliers are experiencing issues, the Groceries Code Adjudicator’s (GCA) 2024 annual survey reveals today [11 July 2024]. However, less than half of respondents directly supplying Amazon believed that it consistently or mostly complies with the Groceries Supply Code of Practice (the Code).
The results of the eleventh annual survey, which received more than 3,000 responses, show that the number of suppliers experiencing a Code issue fell from 36% to 33%.
There was a significant improvement in relation to cost price increases (CPIs). As food price inflation has fallen, the number of suppliers which requested at least one CPI from a Retailer over the previous 12 months fell from 91% in 2023 to 67% in 2024. The number of suppliers highlighting a Retailer’s response to a CPI as an issue almost halved, falling from 28% in 2023 to just 16%.
There has also been improved performance against other issues impacting suppliers:
- 21% of suppliers highlighted inadequate processes in place to enable invoice discrepancies to be resolved promptly, compared to 25% of suppliers in 2023.
- 11% of suppliers highlighted data input errors not being resolved promptly, compared to 16% in 2023.
The survey also included a question on cost price decreases (CPDs) for the first time; only 5% of suppliers highlighted concerns about how a CPD had been requested by a Retailer.
Amazon
Despite the overall improvement in the treatment of suppliers, Amazon’s perceived Code compliance score fell from 59% to 47%.
The GCA has told Amazon that it must take swift and comprehensive action to demonstrably comply with the Code. The GCA is monitoring changes that Amazon is making and their impact on suppliers to determine whether they are sufficient.
Mark White, the Groceries Code Adjudicator said:
“I am encouraged to see improvements in Retailers’ treatment of suppliers across a range of issues including the management of cost price increase requests but also resolution of invoice discrepancies and data input errors.
“However, the survey shows clearly that many suppliers do not believe that Amazon is complying with the Code. Amazon must ensure suppliers understand the changes it has made since its designation and in response to these survey results, and make any further changes that are needed to ensure Code compliance.
“I will not hesitate to launch a formal investigation if appropriate and necessary to ensure Amazon is treating its suppliers fairly and lawfully.
“I encourage suppliers to continue to confidentially tell me about the issues they are facing with Amazon.”
Compliance performance
Overall compliance scores across the Retailers ranged from 98% to 47% with an average compliance across all 14 Retailers of 91% compared to 92% in 2023. Excluding Amazon, average compliance was 94% which was unchanged from the non-Amazon score in 2023.
For the first time, Co-op came top of the 14 Retailers for overall Code compliance with 98%. Co-op and Lidl both experienced a 2% improvement, which was the biggest percentage improvement across the 14 Retailers.
Next steps
As it does every year, the GCA will work with each of the 14 Retailers on their plans to address the issues raised by their suppliers in the survey.
YouGov will undertake a series of deep-dive interviews with suppliers on the GCA’s behalf to provide a greater depth of understanding about the issues that suppliers are facing and their experiences supplying each of the 14 Retailers.
Annual conference
The GCA has also launched registration for its hybrid annual conference, taking place on 1 October 2024. YouGov will share the results of the deep dive at the conference, the Adjudicator will discuss how the GCA is responding to the survey and there will be discussions on overcoming challenges facing the sector.
Further information
The 2024 annual survey was open from 15 January until 25 February 2024.
An with the breakdown of the results is available.
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