The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By Stephen Lepitak, -

January 9, 2014 | 2 min read

Tesco has reported a decline in like-for-like sales of around 2.4 per cent in the UK over the Christmas and New Year period.

The supermarket chain claimed that “further weakness in the UK grocery market” had contributed to the decline in sales, although it also revealed that it had taken over £1bn during the five-day period leading up to Christmas, which also included its biggest day of trading.

Meanwhile, online sales in the UK were up by 14 per cent to £450m, with over 3 million online grocery orders having been made, up by 11 per cent.

Phillip Clarke, chief executive of Tesco, commented: "We continued to invest in the most compelling offer for the tens of millions of customers who chose to shop with us this Christmas, but further weakness in the grocery market as a whole continued to impact our performance in the UK.

“Our on-going work to Build a Better Tesco in the UK is also driving continued improvements for customers, although the effects are being masked in the short term by the strategic changes we have made to improve the long-term sustainability of our business - the transformation of our general merchandise business and the significant reduction in our new store opening programme.

“As expected, this Christmas saw a further consumer shift towards multichannel retailing, and Tesco continues to play a leading role. The increasing focus we have placed in recent years on extending our lead in online grocery and on rolling out our Express format to over 1,600 stores in the UK alone has positioned us well to meet customers' changing needs,” he continued, adding that performance oversees had improved since the third quarter, driven by “an improving trend” in Europe.

To drive Christmas sales, Tesco launched an ad campaign which stated that ‘there’s nothing better than Christmas’.

Yesterday, Sainsbury's released its own trading figures, which saw an increase in sales of 0.2 per cent over the Christmas holiday period.

Meanwhile, Morrison's has also reported a decline in like-for-like sales, at 5.6 per cent.

Christmas Tesco Supermarkets

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