Asda to Invest £700 Million Across UK Business
British grocery retailer Asda has announced that it will invest over £700 million of capital in 2013 into online, new and existing stores and its supply chain helping to create 2,500 new jobs across the UK. It also noted that while bricks and mortar stores are central to growth, the shape of its investment has shifted its focus to accelerating its multi-channel business.
Asda increased sales, including petrol, by 4.5% to £22.8 billion in 2012. The retailer pointed to its investment in holding down the price of essentials, increasing opportunities for customers to shop and putting money back in their pockets as key components of its success.
Andy Clarke, President and CEO of Asda, says: “I’m proud that in the continuing and very challenging trading environment we were able to increase total sales by 4.5% last year. This shows that we are continuing to get it right for customers.By focusing on their needs through accelerating our investment in the technology and infrastructure to make shopping more convenient, customers can shop for what they want, when they want it.”
Asda is Britain’s second biggest online grocer, enjoying success from double-digit year on year growth and increased demand from customers shopping online. As a result the retailer increased its home shopping capacity with the opening of a third purpose-built picking centre in Nottingham recently, creating more than 600 new jobs.
The 120,000 square feet centre has the appearance of ‘a store without customers’ and includes a team of bakers hard at work preparing fresh bread from 4am, a home-baked pizza counter producing bespoke pizzas, as well as offering customers extended delivery slots between 6am and 11pm and access to a product range of more than 25,000 items, with everything from fresh fish to local suppliers. Asda is also offering local businesses a special trade rate on deliveries.
Asda is also investing in Click and Collect facilities for George clothing and General Merchandise in all of its 568 stores and customers will be able to collect grocery shopping from almost 200 outlets by the end of 2013, including from stores and lockers at Asda petrol stations.
This is in addition to the Collect Plus deal announced in March, where customers can buy George and Asda Direct items online and collect or return them at more than 5,000 convenience stores and petrol stations in the UK.
