Asda’s Q1 trading update may have shown that it still has lots of work to do as far as growing in the UK grocery sector is concerned, but it also showed that its fashion ops remain a bright spot, as they have been for some time.

The retailer said that it saw “green shoots” in its overall sales performance, but with a “long way to go” as far as its food sales are concerned. And as for George at Asda, the fashion and homewares brand “outperformed” the market.

The retailer recorded total revenue of £5 billion (excluding fuel), a 5.9% drop year-on-year. This includes a negative 1.1% impact of an extra day’s trading in Q1 2024 due to the leap year. 

Like-for-like sales in the four months to the end of April, adjusted to include the peak Easter trading period, declined by 3.1%. This actually represents a 1.1% improvement on Q4 2024. And Asda has seen further improvements in its like-for-like performance in May. 

We’re told that George at Asda specifically “delivered strong results, with like-for-like sales up 3.5%, outperforming the fashion market by 2% on volume. The combination of style, quality and unbeatable value continues to set George apart from other fashion brands in the supermarket sector”.  

The company has certainly been going all out to boost George overall and in celebration of the supermarket chain’s 60th anniversary, supermodel Yasmin Le Bon was recently unveiled as the face of George’s summer collection. It’s also trialling a standalone George branded store in Leeds at present and has dropped a second collection in its Gym locker fitness range.

It’s certainly interesting that George overall is in positive territory even as sales in Asda’s major supermarkets have been falling. It appears that shoppers seem to be prepared to travel to Asda stores specifically for the George offer even if they're not also buying their groceries at the same time.