Momentum is “building rapidly” at Morrisons’ ecommerce grocery delivery service, which will make its first London deliveries on Monday, the supermarket said today.
The company says that by the end of the year Morrisons.com will be able to serve half of all UK households. It projects total annualised sales of £500m from its online and convenience businesses, and says it is on schedule to have as many as 200 convenience stores by the end of the year.
“Morrisons.com is performing ahead of our expectations with industry-leading metrics on the key points of on time deliveries and replacement items,” said Morrisons in an interim management statement today.
“Following a successful launch phase in Warwickshire and Yorkshire, momentum is building rapidly.”
However, selling online has not reversed declining sales at the grocer. In the 13 weeks to May 4, said Morrisons, total sales excluding fuel fell by 4.2%, while like-for-like sales were down by a dramatic 7.1%.
Morrisons said it had made headway with plans to save £1bn over the next three years, with investment in IT infrastructure and systems that it says will deliver “the platform we need to drive cost out of our business and deliver planned savings.” It has also reduced prices on a range of products.
“The reaction of our customers to the 1,200 ‘I’m Cheaper’ price cuts we announced last week has been very positive,” said Dalton Philips, chief executive. “Although it will take time for their full impact to be felt, we are confident that these meaningful and permanent reductions in our prices will enable our clear points of difference to resonate strongly with consumers.”
• Meanwhile, Ocado has taken its online pet store, Fetch.co.uk, national after a regional trial. The standalone store offers free delivery for customers spending £10 or more and stocks more than 8,000 products.
James Matthews, director of non-food at Ocado, said: “Britain is famous as a nation of pet lovers and we’ve seen real demand for high quality, great value pet care products and so fetch.co.uk was born. We know that pets are very much part of the family and we’ve designed Fetch to help our customers’ pets lead full, healthy and happy lives.”
