J Sainsbury plc reported its second quarter trading statement for the 16 weeks to September 26, 2015. Total retail sales were up 0.3 percent (excluding fuel), down 1.8 percent (including fuel).
Article continues below
Like-for-like Retail sales for second quarter down 1.1 percent (excl fuel), down 3.3 percent (inc fuel).
Volume and transactions grow as customers value our lower regular prices. Full year underlying profit before tax now expected to be moderately ahead of published consensus.
Mike Coupe, chief executive, said; “During the quarter we saw an improvement in our key trading metrics. Both volume and transactions grew as the decline in average basket spend in supermarkets continued to stabilise. Whilst the market is clearly still challenging, with food deflation impacting many categories, we are making good progress on delivering our strategy.
"Our programme to enhance the quality of over 3,000 own-brand products is on track. Taste the Difference volume grew by over four percent in the quarter and was voted the best supermarket range by Good Housekeeping for the third year running.
"We introduced improvements to the taste and texture of our juice ranges and improved the ripeness and quality of our avocados. We also reduced the amount of sugar in our own-brand yoghurt range, supporting our commitment to be the best retailer for food and health.
"We opened 27 convenience stores in the quarter and, for the sixth year in a row, we were named ‘Convenience Retailer of the Year’ at the Retail Industry Awards. Groceries online orders grew at over 15 percent and we increased our number of Click and Collect sites to 52. We also launched our Tu clothing website nationwide.
"The first six weeks of trading significantly exceeded our expectations and the majority of customers are choosing to collect their orders in store.
"Clothing grew by nearly 13 percent in the quarter, with our Back to School campaign proving a great success, selling over 640,000 pairs of boys’ trousers from our school uniform range.
"We worked with Admiral to launch a new menswear collection with two different ranges, Retro and Gold, which are both available exclusively at Sainsbury’s." ■