"Our online grocery orders now exceed 165,000 a week, with an annual turnover of around £800M placing us second in the market, and making us the fastest-growing major online grocery business in the UK,” said the statement.
“Our customer surveys show that quality of service, quality of food and ease of shop all play a part in this success. Our general merchandise website now offers more than 6,000 branded and own-brand products, spanning home and garden, appliances, technology, toys, games, sports and leisure.”
Click & Collect
The firm claimed that growing numbers of shoppers were taking advantage of its Click & Collect service, which is available in more than 900 stores.
Pre-tax profit dropped to £799M, down from the £827M reported last year. The firm attributed the fall to increased pension costs and lower profits on property sales.
Underlying profit rose by 7% to £712M on total sales up 6.8% to £24.5bn. Strong sales growth was attributed to the good performance of the retailer's own-label products, particularly Taste the Difference and Basics ranges.
Sales of its Taste the Difference range were up by 8.2%, while its Basics range rose by 6.8%. This reflected the strong performance of store cupboard essentials and cooking ingredients and made Sainsbury now the second biggest supermarket value brand, it claimed.
“Our Taste the Difference and Basics brands are both performing particularly well, and appear side-by-side in many baskets, showing that, even within a single shopping trip, customers are saving on some items to treat themselves on others,” said the firm.
Savvy shoppers
Justin King, chief executive, said: “We are succeeding by understanding what our customers want, supporting and inspiring them to live well for less. Delivering quality and value is a compelling offer, in tune with what today’s savvy shoppers want. Brand Match, combined with our use of coupon-at-till, has improved Sainsbury’s price perception whilst retaining the benefits of our heritage in quality and service.”
King told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme: “Our results are somewhat better than others have achieved in recent weeks. That’s been achieved by listening to our customers.”
Earlier this year, Asda promised to deliver prices that were 10% cheaper than rivals, while last year Tesco launched its £500M Big Price Drop campaign.
Sainsburys is the country’s third largest supermarket, after Tesco and Asda.