Supermarket giant Tesco is still at the top of the supermarket charts this week, and it retains its leading position in Retail Weeks Top 500 Survey. The survey, compiled by Emap’s Retail Knowledge Bank, showed that sales growth among the country’s top 500 retailers grew by 5.9% between 1999 and 2000. Smaller operators saw their market share squeezed by 7.5% because of the competition from the supermarket giants. The picture for these retailers is however, not ideal.

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Problems at grocery rival Sainsbury meant that it stayed in second place meanwhile, with its year on year sales declining. Marks and Spencer is even in danger of falling from its listing in the top five retailers as its sales plummeted from £6.6bn in 1999 to £6.08bn in 2000.


Sales growth in the top five retailers, which also included Safeway, amounted to only 2.9%. The grocery sector as a whole posted growth of 3.4%.

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