Morrisons opens 500th Morrisons Daily c-store; Sales pick up momentum in first quarter

Morrisons has announced its first quarter results on Friday (30 March), reporting improving sales momentum and positive like-for-like sales.

The supermarket group has added that it has reached the milestone of 500 Morrisons Daily convenience stores this week with the opening of the Phoebe Street store in Salford.

Morrisons has franchise partnerships with Rontec, Harvest Energy, Highland Fuels, independents, Sandpiper in the Channel Islands, as well as its own wholly owned convenience business, McColl’s, which was acquired in May 2022. There are now 350 former McColl’s stores trading as Morrisons Daily with around 10 new conversions every week.

“This is an important milestone for us and cements a leading position in the UK’s growing convenience market,” David Potts, chief executive, said.

“Whether it’s a franchise store or a former McColl’s store, customers are responding really well to the carefully tailored Morrisons Daily fresh food convenience offer, and clearly appreciate our great value and our bright, modern store designs. With every new Morrisons Daily conversion, we see an immediate and substantial uplift in like-for-like sales, often of more than 20 per cent.”

Potts said the retailer expects to reach 750 Morrisons Daily stores in the autumn and the 1,000 store mark early next year.

For the 13 weeks ending 29 January 2023, total revenue was up 3.4 per cent to £4.7 billion, with group like-for-like sales, excluding fuel and VAT, up 0.1 per cent, reflecting steady improvement over the last three trading quarters.

The retailer has announced significant price cutting programmes during this period to help customers through the cost of living crisis and made continued investment in My Morrisons loyalty scheme.

“We still have plenty of work to do, but momentum in the business is now building with an improving trajectory over the last three quarters and like-for-like sales now in positive territory,” Potts said. “Our market share has stabilised, our inflation rate is below our peers, and Morrisons traditional competitiveness, colour and dynamism is steadily returning to every part of the business.”

Morrisons has undertaken a three year £700 million cost savings programme to enable further investment in lowering prices, increasing service levels, investing in loyalty and expanding the convenience footprint.

“This saving will help drive the performance of the business by enabling further investment in our loyalty programme, increasing the pace of McColl’s conversions, putting more hours into our stores, as well as mitigating the significant cost headwinds that we face,” Potts said.

“Although this has been another difficult period for consumers with inflation still at very high levels, we have continued with our programme of regular and meaningful price investments, enabled by a strong start to our cost savings programme.”