Asda looks at more 'ghost stores' to meet demand

The Leeds-based group yesterday opened its second dedicated home shopping centre, where instead of customers, staff tour the aisles to meet online orders.

The store in Enfield on the outskirts of London is not open to the public, but staffed with 400 employees who pick items from shelves and load them into vans for delivery. It hopes the picking store, which follows the success of a pilot store in Morley near Leeds, will meet more than 10,000 online orders a week.

Asda first expanded into 'ghost' stores last year with its 65,000 sq ft Morley store. Asda operations director for new business, Clive West, said the latest 96,000 sq ft site, a 4m investment, will learn from the Morley site.

"Morley was our trial model and it has been successful," said Mr West. "Moving to the site in Enfield is a direct result of what we've learned at Morley. It's part of our strategy to support the total business growth to be number two in food."

The Enfield centre will initially operate 50 vans, but this could increase to 150 vans at full capacity. Whereas most Asda stores deliver between 10am and 10pm, Enfield will deliver from 7am until 11pm.

The Morley centre is split across two floors, whereas the Enfield site is laid out on one floor. It has 25,000 product lines, about 25 per cent more than the first centre.

Mr West said other features include a wider range of world foods and greater emphasis on fresh food. Bread will be baked instore, and customers will be able to order fresh pizzas also made in the centre.

Automated conveyor belts will significantly reduce the amount of aisle walking as many products can be scanned automatically, taking them directly to the loading doors of waiting vans.

The centre will deliver to homes within a 45-minute radius, covering a huge area of north London where it does not have many Asda stores.

Mr West said future home delivery sites will be likely in major conurbations, although the pace of their rollout depends on Morley and Enfield's success.

"If you look at the future growth potential of online there's an absolute need to have home shopping centres around the country, particularly in cities and big towns," he said. "We would absolutely need more than one in London."

Asda's growing home shopping business serves more than 97 per cent of UK homes.

The new site will increase competition with Tesco and Ocado, which both use picking centres.