Morrisons hopeful as online service to launch

Much is expected of the Bradford-based chain’s first foray into home delivery after a month-long trial in the Midlands.

Morrisons lags its three main rivals, Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s, in being the last to launch an online service, but chief executive Dalton Philips has promised that state-of-the-art technology provided by its delivery partner Ocado will enable it to outperform rivals.

The man behind the launch, Simon Thompson, managing director for online food at Morrisons, said: “We’re very happy with Yorkshire pre-bookings. We’ve seen greater demand from Yorkshire shoppers than we’ve seen from Warwickshire.”

This is despite the fact that the Warwickshire region trial covered 12 per cent of UK homes compared with eight per cent for Yorkshire.

Mr Thompson said the three main aims of the Midlands trial were to achieve very low levels of substitutions (when customers get a different product to the one they ordered), for drivers to arrive within the one hour time slot and to make sure it delivered “great fresh food”.

“I can’t give you the numbers,” said Mr Thompson. “I’d love to give you them as we’re absolutely meeting our expectations, which are very high. We’ve seen very low levels of substitutions.”

The service will cover just under two million households in Yorkshire.

Morrisons expects to be covering 50 per cent of the country by the beginning of next year and it will launch in London this summer.

Mr Philips said: “This fresh food offer will be the closest thing on the internet to being in a store and selecting food yourself.

“Customers do have concerns about buying fresh food online and today we believe we’ve come up with the answer.”

Mr Philips previously admitted that Morrisons was late to the online market, but said it “wasn’t too late”.

Morrisons announced its tie-up with online delivery partner Ocado last year, causing some controversy as Ocado delivers Waitrose food.

The 25-year-deal will see Morrisons use Ocado’s recently opened distribution centre in Warwickshire for deliveries through a Morrisons-liveried fleet.

Morrisons shoppers will be able to log on to the website via Facebook and a new deal with mySupermarket.com means they can download their favourites from Tesco, Sainsbury’s or Asda.

The shopping list will include customers’ usual branded goods and own-brand goods will be substituted with the Morrisons’ equivalent.

Other initiatives include one-hour delivery slots, texts to give the name and licence plate of the driver and the promise of low substitutions as goods will be sourced from depots rather than the closest store.

Customers can turn down fresh goods they don’t like the look 
of and receive a full refund and 
a voucher for the price of the goods.

Morrisons is offering a three-tier pricing structure. It will cost £1 for morning or lunchtime deliveries, £3 for later in the day and £5 for weekends.

The website features an animated butcher and has a star rating on the quality of the food.

Cathy Barnes, professor of retail innovation at Leeds Metropolitan University, said: “Dalton Philips has said that the service will build upon their ‘Market Street’ store offer and the fresh food delivery will be the closest thing on the internet to being in a store and selecting food yourself.

“Little touches I like are the ability to upload favourite items from another supermarket site, a boon for the busy working mum, and the hour-long delivery slots listed every 30 minutes are great.

“The website is a bit tricky to use on mobiles as it is not thoughtfully configured for smaller screens. However, after downloading their app, it does seem to have been well designed for the mobile platform.”

Last week George Dymond, the man recruited earlier this month to help run the fledgling internet business, quit the operation.

Mr Dymond, Morrisons’ online food operations director, stepped down after deciding it was not what he was expecting. He was offered another role, but decided to leave.

Ocado is expected to announce the opening of a third distribution centre this week in either Yorkshire or the North West.

Ocado will consult with Morrisons before deciding on the location.