Of course, each sub-geography within Canada has a different competitive landscape, and different demographic, cultural, and economic backdrops, which can have implications for what retailers need to do to best position themselves for long-term success.

To help understand this, we created separate RPI models and rankings for four different sub-geographies within Canada: Ontario, Quebec, the provinces of British Columbia and the Prairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba), and finally the Atlantic provinces (Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia).

Drivers of long-term success with customers are largely consistent across regions, with the Atlantic provinces deviating the most from other provinces, and the importance of savings hitting the highest point in Quebec.

In Atlantic provinces, retailers need to differentiate more on speed and convenience in order to drive superior results, compared to other regions.

Price, Promo, Rewards – the most impactful pillar for retailer outcomes – saw an increase in importance on all sub-geographies except the Atlantic.

More than ever, driving long-term growth in Ontario, Quebec, and BCP is closely tied to a successful Price & Promo strategy, as strong savings are a fundamental aspect of shoppers’ decision-making process.

Even more critically, getting the right balance of mass levers – private brand pricing, base price, promotions available to everyone – and personalized levers – member pricing and promotions available only to members, personalized offers – is trending up. In most provinces, personalized levers trended up more in importance than mass levers. Again, except in the Atlantic provinces.

The strength of Costco’s customer value proposition is mostly consistent across provinces, aside from the mild decline in its overall RPI score we saw in Quebec. The momentum Costco has experienced the past several years in Canada should only continue.

Outside of Costco, we’d like to recognize leading regional discounters/superstores and leading conventionals in each sub-region. Each of the banners indicated in the visual have the strongest RPI scores among their cohort, in their sub-region.

Best-in-class retailers in each customer perception pillar can serve as examples for others to learn from. Walmart and Maxi show the way in Price and Mass Promo, while No Frills lead on Personalized Promo, Rewards. Small regionals Farm Boy, Fortinos, and Longos rival international organic/natural/sustainability standard Whole Foods in Quality.

Walmart is best-in-class in the Digital pillar, while a variety of conventionals populate the top of the Speed and Convenience rankings. Operations, a measure of the dependability of the experience, is topped by Costco, followed by Longos and Whole Foods (BC and Praries).