Supermarket Sainsbury’s has said that sales slipped for the second quarter in a row, as the war on food prices in the sector continues to rage. However, the supermarket has insisted that it continued to make progress, delivering transaction growth across all channels and total volume growth.

In the 16 weeks to September 24th, the company saw total retail sales drop 0.4% excluding fuel, with the more accurate like-for-like retail sales down 1.1% not including fuel.

Following on from the acquisition of Home Retail Group earlier this month, Sainsbury’s said that Argos achieved total sales growth of 3% in the 16 weeks to August 27th and like-for-like sales growth of 2.3 per cent.
The supermarket concluded by saying that it was committed to investing in lower regular prices rather than promotional activity and multi-buy promotions.

Mike Coupe, group chief executive, said: "We continue to make progress against our strategy and, while like-for-like sales were down 1.1 per cent (excl. fuel), driven by food price deflation, we delivered like-for-like transaction growth across all channels and total volume growth. This shows that customers are consistently choosing Sainsbury's for the choice, quality, value and customer service we offer.  

"Our ambition is to help customers live well for less. We have made further investment in everyday low prices and continue to improve the quality of our products. Our general merchandise and clothing offer is popular with customers and the acquisition of Home Retail Group will accelerate our multi-product, multi-channel strategy. We will open 200 new digital collection points by the end of the year and already have 15 Argos Digital stores open in Sainsbury's stores so customers can shop 90,000 products whenever and wherever they want.

"We expect the market to remain competitive and the effect of the devaluation of sterling remains unclear. However, Sainsbury's is well positioned to navigate the changing marketplace and we are confident that our strategy will enable us to continue to outperform our major peers."