Asda owner WalMart has announced a like-for-like sales growth of 0.5% for the 10 weeks to 30 June 2014.
Britain’s second largest retailer continues to focus on offering value and claims to have maintained ‘strong price gaps’ compared the those remaining in the big four.
Grocery home shopping has also continued to grow with market share now at 18.4% while Click & Collect is driving e-commerce growth with more than 20,000 customers per week. Asda’s clothes brand George is now the second largest clothing retailer by volume in the UK. The retailer increased its market share year on year by 14bps and ‘made good progress’ on its itention to push online sales.
Asda anticipates that over the next five years Click & Collect orders will treble with 30% of all orders expected to be collected in Asda stores. With this in mind, the retailer is continuing to innovate and develop its offer. In the last three months Asda has extended the hours customers are able to collect their shopping on a Sunday by four hours, driving a 20% uplift on the day’s orders.
Asda president and chief executive Andy Clarke said that structural changes in the retail market continued to present tough challenges but that Asda had been quick to respond.
’Unprecedented change’
He said: “The last quarter has seen unprecedented change within the food retail sector, and whilst I do not underestimate the challenge currently presenting retailers, I am proud that our business identified and put plans in place to respond to these changes early. We have a clear five-year strategy based on Everyday Low Prices and we continue to implement that strategy with agility and pace.”
The quarter also saw changes and improvements to Asda’s operational efficiency and management structure.
“I am pleased with our performance in the quarter and our business has shown that it is well positioned to meet the demands of a challenging market,” said Clarke.
“However, I’ve been in this business for too long to measure success by quarters and we remain on a long term journey. Innovation, low prices and customer service remain at the heart of our business and over the coming months and years we will continue to implement and build on this successful strategy as we constantly look at new and improved ways to run our business.”
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