UK: Asda plans same day delivery service
The company intends to trial the same-day service from next month, with customers able to collect their order from stores. The investment is part of £700m that will be pumped into the retailer's digital business and opening 12 stores this year, creating 2,500 jobs.
Asda will be the first of the UK’s major supermarket retailers to offer such a service and the development highlights the growing importance of online retailing to the food industry.
Tesco chief executive Philip Clarke last week announced that the retailer was writing down the value of land earmarked for future stores by £804m because it wants to focus investment on its convenience stores and digital business, instead of traditional supermarkets.
Asda, Britain’s second-largest food retailer behind Tesco, also intends to roll out a click-and-collect service across its UK stores. Customers will be able to collect non-food and George clothing products from all 568 stores, while the number of Asda sites offering a click-and-collect service for food shopping will double to almost 200 in 2013.
The retailer is developing stand-alone collection points at Asda petrol stations, a Reading business park and a park-and-ride facility in Nottingham.
Last week, it opened a “drive-through” click-and-collect facility in York that allows customers to collect food and non-food orders by scanning their mobile phone and waiting for a customer assistant to load their shopping into the car.
Andy Clarke, Asda chief executive, said: “Click-and-collect has gone from nowhere to somewhere very quickly.”
Kieran Shanahan, home shopping director at Asda, added: “I think it (click-and-collect) will be as big as home delivery in a few years. I don’t think it will take 15 years.”
At present, click-and-collect accounts for 50pc of Asda’s non-food orders and 5pc of food orders. Online sales are growing at 20pc a year and it is the second-biggest online grocer behind Tesco.
Source: telegraph.co.uk
