Sainsbury's highlights own brand offer as it announces modest sales drop
Sainsbury’s has claimed that sales of its Taste the Difference range have increased by nearly 10 per cent during its first quarter, as it saw like-for-like retail sales decrease by 1.1 per cent, excluding fuel.
The supermarket chain has reported despite the decline in retail sales, it has been investing in price reduction and improving quality, however customers were found to be still cautious with their spend.
Justin King, CEO of Sainsbury’s highlighted the company’s Brand Match offer as one that was keeping the supermarket competitive.
“Once again, over 50 per cent of the vouchers issued confirm to our customers that their branded shop was the same price or cheaper. Recent changes from £20 spend to 10 items makes it even easier for our customers to take advantage of Brand Match,” he claimed, adding that investment in product offering would continue.
“Own-brand remains a key point of difference, with our Taste the Difference range performing particularly strongly in the quarter, with sales up nearly 10 per cent. This Easter we launched our first by Sainsbury's Easter eggs, more than doubling our own-brand market share to 40 per cent1. We also successfully completed the trial of our first in-store scratch bakery in a convenience store and we continue to support British farmers by using British flour and cream in the one million products we bake from scratch every day,” he added.
King also revealed that convenience sales grew by over 18 per cent year-on-year, while it also opened its 200th convenience store in London.
The online sale of groceries also increase year-on-year during the quarter by over 10 per cent following the improvement of Sainsbury’s online services in April across web and mobile.
“We expect customer spending to remain cautious and we will continue to invest to keep our offer competitive to help customers balance their household budget. We remain confident that our clear strategy and differentiated offer will allow us to continue to outperform our supermarket peers through the remainder of the year,” King concluded.
During the same period, Sainsbury’s opened 27 new convenience stores and refurbished another 12.
Last week, Tesco announced a group sales decline of 0.9 per cent.