Waitrose & Partners has announced the launch of a two-hour delivery trial.
The supermarket has teamed up with On the dot, the last mile retail delivery startup, to launch ‘Waitrose Rapid Delivery’ in selected London locations.
Before completing their order they will be given the option to receive their shopping within two hours of placing the order or to specify a one-hour time slot on the same day.
There is a £10 minimum spend and a £5 charge will apply for using either service. The service will be limited to 20 items, and customers can make the purchase at rapid.waitrose.com.
Waitrose said that using On the dot cargo bikes, as well as vans, to make deliveries is predicted to save up to four tonnes of GHG emissions a year.
Convenience Drive
“Customers are increasingly wanting to buy whatever they want when they want it. For many, we have moved away from the weekly supermarket visit to give us more fluidity with our busy lives and give us better control against over-buying and waste, said Richard Ambler, Head of Business Development at Waitrose & Partners.
“Our trips to the supermarket are therefore much more frequent - Waitrose Rapid Delivery ensures we give our customers even greater flexibility and convenience to get their shopping as and when they want it.”
According to research carried out for the Waitrose Food Report 2017/18, two-thirds of people regularly or occasionally visit a supermarket more than once a day, with 18-to 24-year olds twice as likely to visit a supermarket twice a day.
“Customers are shifting away from the routine of the big weekly shop – instead, time-poor and convenience-driven consumers are opting for ultra-fast deliveries of small baskets at a time that suits them. Customers want to take back control and remain informed on the status of their deliveries in real-time,” Santosh Sahu, CEO of On the dot, said.
The British retailer recently announced that it will phase out single-use plastic bags by March 2019 across all its outlets.
Profits the chains parent company, the John Lewis Partnership, were wiped out in the first half of the year as it was forced to match discounting by its struggling rivals on a fiercely competitive high street.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Aidan O'Sullivan. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
