The Czech Republic ranked its favorite grocery stores and retailers: who topped the list?

Czechs chose the Lidl supermarket chain as the best retailer last year in the public voting section of the 18th annual Mastercard Merchant of the Year Award.

In the online voting for the Public Award category, the Czech branch of Lidl took a solid victory with 90,257 votes. Kaufland received 48,529 votes which was good enough for second place and Albert came third place with 29,844 votes. Voting took place between Oct. 19, 2020, and Jan. 17, 2021. A total of 114,080 people distributed 479,594 valid votes among various retailers.

Voting was not restricted to supermarkets, but they took the top seven positions. Drug store dm drogerie markt was eighth, followed by electronics shops Alza.cz and Datart.

The contest included 14 other categories that were determined by the results of online surveys that ranked several factors, plus an award for the highest jumper. Lidl also won at the Best Retailer of the Year with Groceries, scoring highly for its memorability and customer loyalty. Lidl-shop.cz won in the new e-shop category, with high marks for customer confidence.

The absolute winner of the contest was the pharmacy chain Dr. Max, which scored strongest in memorability and second in loyalty. It overtook the furniture chain Ikea, which had won in the last seven years but this time was in second last year. Dr. Max also won first place in the new Pharmacy of the Year category. Dm drogerie markt finished in third place in the absolute rankings.

Aside from e-shops and pharmacies, new categories were also introduced for toys and books. “The inclusion of these categories also affected the overall ranking of retailers from previous years. The new categories are strong and their most prominent retailers are ranked at the top of all parameters and overall scores,” Michal Cardar, Mastercard CEO for the Czech Republic and Slovakia, said in a press release.

The most significant trend in the retail market this year and last is the increase in e-commerce.

“We can observe an interesting development in the field of e-shops with food, The inclusion of stores such as Kosik.cz and Rohlik.cz in the category of food this year did not figure into the highest ranks of the total score, but for example in the confidence parameter this year Rohlik.cz reached second place,” Cardar said.