Morrisons says its online service is now available to more than half of UK households, two years after the service was launched. The supermarket now plans to expand the service it currently offers in partnership with Ocado so that it can deliver nationwide, while it will also sell groceries wholesale through Amazon .
The update came as Morrisons reported revenue of £16.2m in the year to January 31 2016, 4.1% down from £16.8m in the previous year. Pre-tax profits of £217m were up from a loss of £792m last time.
Online is part of a wider Morrisons’ strategy aimed at improving its customers’ experience of buying from it, while also saving £1bn in a three-year cost savings programme – after two years the company has reduced costs by £647m. A three-phase strategy will see the retailer move from ‘fix’ to ‘rebuild’ and ‘grow’.
“By improving the shopping trip for customers, we have started the journey to turnaround the business and make our supermarkets strong,” said chief executive David Potts. “Our listening programme is informing and shaping the six priorities that are now driving the improvements that customers are noticing.”
Those priorities include becoming more competitive by cutting prices, serving customers better through improved service and better availability, finding local solutions and developing popular and useful services such as bringing branches of Timpsons into Morrisons, in a scheme now being trialled. The final two prongs of the strategy are to simplify and speed up the organisation and to make core supermarkets strong again.
