George at Asda’s Back to School campaign boosts clothing sales

Supermarket chain, Asda, today published its Q2 financial results. Despite declining grocery sales, its clothing offshoot George at Asda boosted online sales by 3.9% thanks to a successful Back to School campaign.

The supermarket chain reported a 2.2% decline in total revenues, excluding fuel, to £5.3 billion in Q2. Like-for-like sales were 5.3% lower. Despite this, Asda delivered total revenue growth of 2% in H1, with a 2.1% decline in like-for-like sales.

Asda continued to deliver a strong online performance in grocery and clothing in the quarter. This is alongside its best-ever sales at the start of its Back-to-School campaign, with George’s back-to-school ranges having been the market leader by sales volumes and value for 11 consecutive years.

Mohsin Issa, Co-owner of Asda, said: "These results highlight a period of robust online performance and a record start to George’s Back-to-School campaign.

"As we move forward, we remain committed to maintaining our value credentials, enhancing the product offer, and executing our long-term growth strategy to build an even stronger Asda for our customers and communities."

Despite George at Asda's success, the debt-laden grocery giant lost more customers to its largest rivals. Bosses admitted it has seen its share of the grocery market shrink in recent months.

Michael Gleeson, Asda’s CFO, said it is investing heavily into improving its store standards, product availability and staffing hours in order to address concerns over customers’ shopping experience.