Morrisons insists home deliveries are success

The Bradford-based grocer launched its first foray into home delivery in the Midlands on January 10 and rolled out the long-awaited service to Yorkshire at the start of this week.

A spokesman for Morrisons told the Yorkshire Post that performance is “ahead in the Midlands and even more ahead in Yorkshire”. He added that most reactions have been “extremely positive”.

However, new research from SBXL, a Tamworth-based shopping behaviour analyst, claims that shoppers in Midlands have been giving a lukewarm reaction to the service.

The company warned that regular customers of Morrisons are less likely to abandon bricks and mortar and shop online than customers of any other supermarket.

SBXL said it surveys a cross section of shoppers on a monthly basis. It analyses information from more than 3,000 shoppers to give an ongoing picture of habits and attitudes.

Serena Tippler, insight manager at SBXL, said all major retailers, but Morrisons in particular, must work a lot harder to get people to change their habits and do more grocery shopping online.

The spokesman for Morrisons said: “This report is very inconsistent with what we are seeing in our online business.

“Customers are loving our service and we can only assume that this is mischief making from a company that on its website says it works for Asda and Tesco.”

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

George Dymond, the man recruited last this month to help run the fledgling internet business, quit the operation last week, after deciding it was not what he was expecting.

Morrisons is due to update the City on trading next month.