Waitrose continues market outperformance with robust festive sales

Tuesday 6 January 2015

Waitrose continued its six-year sales outperformance of the market over the Christmas period.* For the five weeks ending Saturday 3 January 2015, total sales (excluding fuel) were £728 million - up by 7.0 per cent on the equivalent period last year. Like-for-like sales increased by 2.8 per cent.

Mark Price, Waitrose Managing Director, said: 'This strong sales performance in a tough trading environment is a tribute to all our Partners who work so hard to give the high quality products and outstanding service that customers want all year round and especially at Christmas.

'As a business owned by the people who work here, we can take the long-term view and our Christmas results show the effectiveness of our strategy of investing in good value, in making our shops attractive destinations and in building our online business.'

Online sales also did extremely well compared to the same period last year. Grocery sales through Waitrose.com grew by 26.3 per cent, with wines, flowers and hampers showing a 39.9 per cent increase.

Waitrose.com development in London

Waitrose is continuing to build capacity in its online grocery business with the opening of a new bespoke dot.com fulfilment centre in Coulsdon on 3 March 2015. This facility will employ 450 Partners by the end of January 2016.

Waitrose is proposing to close its existing fulfilment centre in Acton in Spring 2015. The centre will almost certainly be the subject of a compulsory purchase order for HS2 in 2017. Waitrose is consulting Partners about this now so they can take advantage of the job opportunities created by the opening of Coulsdon.

This new centre will have twice the capacity of Acton and so, along with vacancies in nearby branches, there will be enough employment opportunities for all Acton Partners. Waitrose.com customers in London will continue to receive the same level of service.

*Source Kantar


Notes to editors

About Waitrose - Waitrose currently has 334 shops in England, Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands, including 59 convenience branches and another 29 shops at Welcome Break locations. It combines the convenience of a supermarket with the expertise and service of a specialist shop - dedicated to offering quality food that has been responsibly sourced, combined with high standards of customer service.

Waitrose's omnichannel business includes the online grocery service, Waitrose.com, through which customers can choose to have their shopping delivered direct to their home or collect items from their local branch with a Click & Collect service. Waitrose also operates direct services websites including a specialist wine website (waitrosecellar.com), a pet products website (waitrosepet.com) and a flowers and gifts ordering service viawaitrosedirect.com.

Waitrose Dotcom Fulfilment Centres (DFC)

  • Waitrose has one DFC in Acton, and is building another larger purpose built operation in Coulsdon, Croydon.
  • The DFC at Acton, which occupies 37,000 sq ft, was formerly used as a John Lewis warehouse and in 2011 was converted, providing additional capacity for Waitrose.com orders in London.
  • The new DFC at Coulsdon is scheduled to open on 3 March 2015. It will be a purpose-built modern operation with over 80,000 sq ft and double the capacity of the Acton DFC.

Enquiries

For further information please contact:

Gill Smith
Senior Manager, Waitrose Corporate PR
Telephone: 01344 825 165
Mobile: 07887 898133