Lidl enjoys ‘record’ Christmas sales and pushes on with expansion plan

Lidl has vowed to plough ahead with its rapid store expansion plans after enjoying ‘record’ Christmas sales.

Even with many having a smaller-scale Christmas than normal, the average amount of cash shoppers spent at Lidl over the festive period increased, prompting total sales to jump 17.9 per cent in the four weeks to 27 December. The group does not publish its like-for-like sales figures.

The average festive basket size rose by nearly a quarter over the period, with shoppers snapping up one million bottles of pink prosecco.

The German-based discount supermarket wants to boost its store portfolio from 800 to 1,000 by 2023 and claims it remains ‘on track’ to achieve this.

Surging sales: Lidl has vowed to plough ahead with its rapid store expansion plans after enjoying ‘record’ Christmas sales

The chain said it believed shoppers switched £34.7million of spend from other supermarkets to Lidl over Christmas. 

Sales of Lidl’s premium Deluxe range swelled by 22 per cent, while festive favourites like mince pies and panettone also sold well. 

Lidl said it sold over 2.7million ‘servings’ of panettone over the period and the equivalent of 7,000 glasses of mulled wine and almost 17,000 classic Deluxe Luxury Mince Pies every hour.

Its Christmas jumper in the Lidl colours of blue, yellow and red sold at a rate of one every minute. 

The supermarket continued to press ahead with its £1.3billion store expansion programme in December, opening four new stores, including sites in Southampton and Nottingham. 

Lidl said its festive sales meant it was the ‘fastest growing retailer versus the Big 4 supermarkets and main competitors.’ 

Christian Härtnagel, chief executive of Lidl GB said: ‘Despite this Christmas being a difficult time for many across the country, we are pleased to have been able to help our customers enjoy themselves by offering high quality food at the lowest prices on the market. 

‘Our record sales and significant basket size growth just demonstrates the strength of the Lidl appeal.’

Loyalty: Lidl launched a new loyalty app in September last year 

He added: ‘As we look ahead to this year, we remain committed to our expansion and investment plans, offering more customers up and down the country our great quality, unbeatable value offer.’ 

In September, Lidl launched its first ever smartphone loyalty rewards app, promising shoppers discounts on its own-brand products, cinema tickets and Sky TV packages.

The German-based discount supermarket said shoppers using the new app, called ‘Lidl Plus’, would be able to get ‘scratch card’ prizes, ranging from 25p to up to £20 off their weekly shop.

Customers using the app also have a one in five chance of a win on the ‘scratch card’ with each purchase, Lidl claimed.

Boost: Other supermarkets like Aldi have also benefited from the pandemic restrictions 

Having been able to stay open throughout, supermarkets have benefited from the pandemic and Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Aldi all revealed higher Christmas sales in updates last week.

Lidl’s rival discounter Aldi also posted a 10.6 per cent sales increase for the four weeks up to 24 December. 

While supermarkets have been able to cash in on the pandemic, other retailers, like Debenhams and the Arcadia group, have seen their demise accelerated as a result of sporadic enforced temporary closures.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk