Sainsbury's unveils plan to boost non-food sales

May 14 2008

Sainsbury’s unveiled plans to boost non-food sales today, including through the launch of a new online venture.

The supermarket chain said it will be rolling out its online non-food website next year after spending £15 million on its development. It will allow the group to start taking on rivals Tesco and Asda’s fast-growing web sales operations for electrical goods, music and DVDs and homewares.

Sainsbury’s said it was also strengthening the chain’s in-store non-food offering. The company hopes to gain nearly £1.2 billion of extra sales in the category during the three years to March 2010.

To help achieve this, it said 60 stores over 60,000 sq ft in size will have around a quarter of their space given over to non-food products. Currently just two of the larger stores are laid out in this way.

And Sainsbury’s TU clothing range will be expanded to 300 stores, from 270 currently.

Sainsbury’s said it was also recruiting around 150 designers, buyers and other staff for its TU clothing base in Coventry. The first general merchandise range to be fully designed from the Coventry site will be for autumn/winter 2008.

Chief executive Justin King said: “We have got a growing non-food business.

“A big part of our expansion programme is directed to providing more space for non-food.”

A new 1,700-strong range of TU Home range of homewares was launched last month in two stores, in Sydenham, London and Oldbury in the West Midlands. It is set to be rolled out in other stores over the coming year.