Including Lidl reaching a market share high and Asda launching new price cuts.
The Source rounds up some of the key retail stories of the week.
Retail Week has revealed that Asda is to launch a fresh wave of price cuts, less than two weeks after it last cut prices. The grocer will cut the price of over 40 fresh produce lines by an average 18%. On September 9 it announced that it was lowering prices on more than 1,000 products.
Sainsbury’s online director and head of clothing have been upped to commercial directors following the acquisition of Argos. Robbie Feather will sit on the Sainsbury’s/Argos board and will oversee commercial across Argos’ stores and online offer. Meanwhile, James Brown has been made commercial director for the grocer’s non food offer.
Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s is closing its digital entertainment arm, as well as offloading its ebook business. Entertainment on Demand – which comprises television and music downloading capabilities, as well as digital magazine purchases – will close on October 1. In addition, the retailer will offload its ebook business to the Rakuten-owned Kobo.
John Lewis has seen its sales for the week to September 17 rise slightly, by 0.9% to £79.4 million. The arrival of the iPhone 7 helped boost the electricals, home and tech department by 9.9%, while headphone sales jumped 101%. However, fashion was hit by a 8% drop year on year, with the retailer attributing this to the heatwave.
The latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel have revealed that supermarket sales rose 0.3% in the 12 weeks to September 11. Both Aldi and Lidl saw rises in sales – 11.6% and 9.5% respectively, with Lidl reaching a market share high of 4.6%. Waitrose grew sales 3.4% and now holds a new record market share of 5.3%. Asda saw sales decline 5.4%, Sainsbury’s dropped 1.4%, Morrisons was down 2.3% and Tesco dipped 0.2% (although this was its best year on year performance this year).
Fashion retailer River Island has posted flat full year profits and sales. Operating profits stood at £145.8 million for the year to December 26 2015, compared to £146.6 million in the prior year. Sales in the period rose to £932.7 million from £931.6 million.
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