Do you really understand retailer shopper segments? 🤔

Who exactly are Carol and Dawn?

Have you ever sat in a Tesco meeting wondering who on earth Carol and Dawn are, and why everyone else seems to know what they mean?

Those names came from Tesco’s old ‘Five Families’ shopper segmentation. It was so embedded in the business that the language became shorthand for how decisions were made across Tesco.

That’s why retailer shopper segmentations matter.

Not because brands need to memorise the labels, but because they influence how buyers think about their shoppers, their missions, and what good looks like in the category.

The risk is using the names without understanding what sits behind them, or worse, turning them into stereotypes rather than signals of behaviour.

Let’s take a look at a few familiar retailer examples including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Boots.

We will explore how their shopper segmentations are designed to be used, and where brands need to be careful in using this shorthand.

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Tesco: behaviour-led segmentation

Tesco launched this new segmentation in 2025. Unlike the well-known ‘Five Families’, this one aims to be behaviour-led, rather than people-led.

It’s designed to help teams move from insight to action by focusing on what shoppers are trying to do, how they shop and what they value in that moment, rather than who they are as people.

We’ve gone from personified shoppers like Carol and Dawn to behaviour-led segments, using language such as Efficiency Jugglers or Savvy Savers, which shifts the focus from who the shopper is to what they’re trying to do.

For brands, that’s a useful reminder. The value isn’t in memorising the terminology. It’s in using the behavioural thinking behind it to shape category decisions, without turning segments into fixed labels or assuming shoppers sit neatly in one box.

Sainsbury’s: basket-led segmentation

Sainsbury’s has several ways to segment its customers, including loyalty, affluence and RFM (recency, frequency and monetary value).

One of the most commonly referenced in category conversations is My Shopping Group, which clusters shoppers based on the products they buy, looking at signals like health, value and preparation time. Examples of these clusters include groups such as Meals Made Easy and Home Cooks.

For food and drink categories, this can be powerful. It links directly to basket behaviour and shows how different shopping types play out in range, space and promotions. Used well, it helps frame conversations around missions and trade-offs shoppers are making.

For non-food categories, My Shopping Group can be less directly relevant, and other segmentations such as affluence or RFM may provide a more meaningful lens for category-specific decisions.

Boots: people-led segmentation

Boots’ customer segmentation is more people-led than mission-led.

It’s designed to help brands understand who their shoppers are within Boots, how they compare to the wider category and whether a brand over or under-indexes with customer profiles such as Mature, Prime and Baby.

In that sense, it has more in common with Tesco’s old Five Families approach than with Tesco’s current behaviour-led segmentation.

The risk is similar to what we saw with Five Families. When segments become shorthand for “people like this”, it’s easy to assume behaviour is fixed.

Used well, Boots’ segmentation helps sharpen targeting and recruitment. Used poorly, it can oversimplify how and why shoppers move between brands and missions within Boots.

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Across retailers, the common thread is the same. Shopper segmentations are designed to guide better decisions, not to be repeated as labels.

When brands understand what sits behind the shorthand, they’re better placed to align with how retailers think about shoppers, missions and trade-offs, and to build more credible category stories as a result.

If your team is referencing retailer segmentations but not always confident in applying them, this is often a skills gap rather than an insight gap.

If you’d like to upskill your team on using retailer context more effectively, just get in touch to set up a discovery call.

In case you missed it, our UK Grocery Retailer Insight Report 2026 is now available.

A practical guide to the UK grocery retail landscape, helping your team understand retailer priorities and the biggest growth opportunities.

What’s inside:

• Macro insights shaping UK grocery retail in 2026.

• One-pagers on each major grocery retailer.

• Category growth opportunities linked to shopper needs.