Breakfast briefing: Retail news on Asda, Exhibit and more

Asda transmits £228.2m of online sales to Ireland

Asda funnelled £228.2m (€253.4m) of online grocery sales through its Irish unit last year, Irish Independent reported.

The retailer had set up the Irish unit to reduce the cost of processing credit card charges for online grocery shopping.

The Irish subsidiary is used to process revenue from the sale of its groceries through all its online channels, including the Asda.com website, as well as phone and tablet applications.

Asda Home Shopping Cards revealed that revenue hit £228.2m last year and it made an operating profit of £307,000.

Total retail sales drop in Scotland in September

Total retail sales in Scotland dropped 0.6% in September, according to the Scottish Retail Sales Monitor, The Herald Scotland reported.

The Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) noted that total food sales increased 0.7% after two months of negative growth.

Although food sales were boosted by warm weather, sales of autumn and winter clothing ranges were in loss.

Total non-food sales fell 1.7% in September.

Head of policy and external affairs at the SRC Ewan MacDonald-Russell said: “There does seem to have been a bump in retail sales. Clothing is a bit down, but that’s because people didn’t buy their winter coats in September. It’s one of those arbitrary things.”

Sales decline rate has slowed following a 2.2% drop in August and 1.8% in July.

Exhibit enters administration with loss of jobs

The Northern Ireland womenswear chain Exhibit told staff on Monday that the company had entered administration with a loss of approximately 100 jobs, The Belfast Telegraph reported.

Trading under the name of Cucco Retail Limited, the clothing chain has 14 stores and concessions across Northern Ireland.

The company said: “A general downturn in trading conditions, coupled with a significant change in consumer spending patterns over recent times, has significantly impacted on the company’s trade and has resulted in the appointment of joint administrators.

“The joint administrators and their staff are currently undertaking an immediate assessment of the financial position of the company and its assets. Once this is complete the joint administrators will have a clearer picture of the future options available to them.”