Home Retail Group (HRG) today announced its trading figures for the period 31 August 2014 to 3 January 2015.
Almost half (49%) of all sales at Argos – which is owned by HRG – were placed online, with a whopping 80% of those being ‘Check & Reserve’ orders. For the six months ending August 2014 ‘Check & Reserve’ was 70% of total online sales.
Mobile commerce sales grew by 40% to 28% of total Argos sales, which was up from 20% for the previous year.
Total sales at Argos grew by 0.8% to £1,822m. Net new space contributed 0.7% as a net nine stores were added in the period as part of the previously announced trials, including seven Argos digital concessions within Homebase stores and three small format digital stores. The Argos portfolio now comprises 756 stores.
In November of last year, Argos opened a store on Cannon Street Tube station in London, which was part of its plan to open 50 digital stores by Christmas.
Like-for-like sales increased by 0.1% in the period, Argos said. There was further growth in sales of electrical products as a whole, principally as a result of strong sales performances in video gaming, TV’s and mobiles, partially offset by a market driven decline in tablets. These sales increases were principally offset by a sales decline in jewellery.
