Commercial director Gareth Ellis said yesterday that 2016 was another difficult year for FMCG.

In-home consumption of the product categories in the 12 months to March slipped 1.8 per cent.

Among the 92 key FMCG categories, food and beverages, such as ready-to-drink tea, instant tea and milk; household products and personal care products were experiencing a decline of 10-20 per cent in sales.

Consumers were likely to tighten their belts in purchasing fast-moving consumer goods in terms of the number of product categories, shopping frequency and spending per trip as a result of the sluggish economy and weak consumer confidence.

The slowing trend was expected to accelerate in the coming months, particularly in the Northeast, North and Central region, where FMCG sales have been dropping sharply since January.

“With such a trend, the situation in this market appears to be |maintained and getting worse,” he said.

In the year to March, the number of categories purchased per average household fell to 41 from 42.

Shopping frequencies at retail stores also dropped, for instance, |to 26 from 27 times a year at |hypermarkets/supermarkets, from 37 to 36 at convenience stores |and from 133 to 127 at traditional stores.

However, spending per trip rose to Bt275 from Bt252 at hypermarkets/supermarkets and to Bt95 from Bt93 at convenience stores.

Traditional stores were the |losers, with a dip to Bt51 per trip from Bt52 in March 2014.

“This showed that local consumers were concerned about their affordability while household debt remained at a high level,” he said.

Other findings were that most categories continued to see downsizing and a shift away from premium offers.

All brands should gain a better understanding of the key role of |various package sizes to lure customers to trial their products as well as to build their customer base, he added.