Pizza delivery company Domino’s today said ecommerce continued to be one of its “key drivers” for growth, as it unveiled a 63% rise in online sales.
Domino’s Pizza UK & Ireland said online sales rose by 62.9% to £41.3m in the first 13 weeks of its financial year, from £25.3m at the same time last year, and now account for 39.3% of delivered sales, up from 28.8% last time.
The company also has more than 160,000 Facebook fans and more than 5,000 Twitter followers.
Today’s interim management statement, released to coincide with the business’ annual general meeting, showed that the ecommerce success helped to boost sales across the business. System sales rose by 11.2% to £132.3m in the period, while like-for-like sales across 608 mature stores rose by 4.2%. That pace of growth was, however, lagging behind last year’s 10.5% sales rise at the same point in the year.
Chief executive Chris Moore said: “We are glad to be reporting a good performance in the UK, where like-for-like gross sales were up 7.8% in the first 13 weeks, if the VAT increase was taken into account.
“The overall group numbers were, however, held back by the very difficult trading environment in the Republic of Ireland which contributes 7.4% of our system sales. However, as a Company we are rarely satisfied with just a good performance and we have some exciting new products and marketing initiatives lined up to lead the charge for the rest of the year.”
He said that despite “very challenging comparatives” with last year, the business was “well placed for further strong growth.”
Our view: It’s easy to think that pizza just seems to be one of those things it’s easier to order online, and that given the choice people will. But of course that’s to underrate the thought put into the Domino’s online capability. An important part of the equation is that Domino’s has made it truly easy – and, importantly, reliable – to order pizza online. It’s only when all of those parts of the equation are in place, that consumers really will find it more convenient to order online. And that’s where Domino’s has found a real competitive advantage.
