E-commerce sales at Sainsbury’s accounted for 40% of all sales in the first half of its financial year, up from 19% of all sales this time last year.
Digital grocery sales rose 102% year-on-year at the supermarket, while overall digital sales – including contributions from Argos – rose 117% to £5.8 billion.
Sainsbury’s told investors it had more than doubled its groceries online capacity and volume since March. with 17% of grocery sales now taking place online compared with 7% in March.
It said it was currently fulfilling over 700,000 online customer orders per week across home delivery and click and collect, and that by the end of this year it expected to be able to fulfil 760,000 orders per week.
Sainsbury’s said that its groceries online business was profitable due to its scale and in-store pick model.
Chief Executive Simon Roberts said: “Covid-19 has accelerated a number of shifts in our industry. Investments over recent years in digital and technology have laid the foundations for us to flex and adapt quickly as customers needed to shop differently. Around 19% of our sales were digital this time last year and nearly 40% of our sales are digital today.”
Sainsbury’s also revealed that it was creating a new supply chain and logistics operating model, which would see it move to a single integrated supply chain and logistics network across Sainsbury’s and Argos. It said that this would structurally reduce its costs by £150 million by March 2024.
