– Diapers are expensive. It is therefore important that it is a good offer. I shop where they have a diaper agreement, says Mahdieh Khanmohammadi. With a child of one and a half years at home, she is a diligent user of the diaper discounts in the various grocery chains. Father-of-two Basil Abuassaf also takes a nappy pack with him as he does the rum Christmas shopping. – You can save a lot of money on such agreements. It obviously plays a role in which store I choose to shop in, he says. For the past 22 years, Norwegian consumers have been used to extremely cheap nappies. The offers have varied, but since last autumn both Kiwi, Rema 1000 and Coop Extra have sold nappies at half price. But for a long time it looked like the diaper bonanza was coming to an end. According to the websites of both Kiwi and Coop Extra, the current agreement was to end in 2022. Now Coop is turning. – The member discount of 50 per cent on nappies will be continued in 2023. We think that is good news at the end of the year, says senior adviser Knut Lutnæs at Coop. Knut Lutnæs is a senior adviser in communications and government relations at Coop. Photo: PRESSEFOTO / Espen Solli Rema and Kiwi hold back Lutnæs believes that the discount will come in handy for many. – There are increased interest rates, electricity costs and prices for food and other goods. Being able to reduce expenses for diapers is about several thousand kroner annually. – Why do you choose to continue the diaper agreement? – We see that this is an important offer for an important customer group for Extra. They also need a contribution to keep their costs down. At Kiwi, communications manager Kristine Arvin will not say specifically what will happen to the agreement after 31 December. But she promises that customers will get good offers next year as well. – We have had a diaper agreement for 22 years. We can promise our customers that we will still have the cheapest nappies, but for reasons of competition we cannot say what we are planning over the New Year, she says. Communications manager Kristine Arvin at Kiwi. Photo: Kiwi Communications manager Hege S. Rognlien in Rema 1000 writes the following in an e-mail: – Today you get a 50 percent discount on nappies. For competitive reasons, we cannot answer whether this is something we will continue with in the future. But we know that nappies are an important product for many of our customers, and we must therefore always be competitive here. – Extremely interesting lure Professor Tor Wallin Andreassen at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) believes that the diaper agreements are very important for grocery chains. Professor Tor Wallin Andreassen at NHH. Photo: NHH – Families with small children are probably the main target group, because these are people with a large household who buy a lot and often. Diapers at a discount are an extremely interesting lure. The nappies are sold with marginal profitability or just break-even. But then you get the customers into the store, with the rest of the shopping list. They also make impulse purchases when they first get there, he says. Andreassen believes that families with small children are too valuable a customer group for the chains to risk losing them. – It would be a disaster for the grocery chains to lose the families with young children. It has been 22 years since the first diaper agreement in Norway. The discount has become important for many families with young children. Photo: Lise Marit Kalstad / news Expensive deal for the chains Selling a product at half price over a long period seems like bad business. But Lutnæs in Coop will not say how much the diaper deal costs them. – We are not allowed to say that exactly. But just through the diaper discount, our customers have saved almost NOK 56 million in 2022. It is an expense we take on, and it amounts to large amounts for us. – And is it worth it? – We absolutely mean that. It is a very good deal for our customers. – It has been called a “diaper war”. Does it feel like this? – I don’t think war is a very good term to use for a completely normal activity in a well-regulated market. But there is no doubt that there is a battle for customers. Diapers, baby equipment and baby food are an important category, says Lutnæs.
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This happens with the diaper deals after the New Year – news Rogaland – Local news, TV and radio
