Asda, the UK unit of Wal-Mart, has denied rumours that it is planning to open stores in the Republic of Ireland.
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“We’ve always said that we’ve no plans to move into the Republic of Ireland,” a spokesperson for the retailer told just-food today (29 July). “But never say never.”
According to Asda, the supermarket group operates a number of stores in Northern Ireland on the border with the Republic of Ireland. These outlets attract shoppers from south of the border because Asda’s prices are lower than those offered by Irish retailers, the company said.
“We get a lot of shoppers travelling up because it is cheaper. In places like Enniskillen and Striven you are looking at 40% of business coming from the Republic of Ireland. The retail scene there is less competitive so there aren’t the incentives to keep prices down,” the spokesperson said.
However, while Asda has no plans to open shop in Ireland the UK retailer told just-food that it intends to begin delivering to the country through its website.
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By GlobalData“When we redo our website we will be able to do deliveries into Ireland. They don’t really have postcodes there, which is causing our system some problems, but we hope to overcome those,” the spokesperson revealed.
