Supermarket Sainsbury’s says its online groceries business is growing at more than 20% a year. The company said the figures continued an ongoing trend in its business.
The update came as the company released a trading statement for the 10 weeks to March 19, crediting record levels of instore visitor numbers in part to its multichannel strategy.
Overall, it said, a million more customers were now visiting its stores each week than at the same time last year.
Chief executive Justin King said: “In a tough consumer environment our focus on delivering universal customer appeal and our multichannel and space growth strategy has attracted a record 21 million customers to our stores each week, up one million on last year.
“As a result we have delivered total sales growth excluding fuel of 3.5% and like-for-like sales growth of 1.0%, outperforming the market in the period.”
Other highlights included the fast rate of growth in non-food sales, which grew at more than three times the rate of food transactions and King said that the company was “well-positioned for further growth in 2011/12” despite an expected “tough” consumer environment.
