UK retailer Sainbury’s is reintroducing its bicycle home-delivery service for customers living in Central London, via its IOS Chop Chop app. It has been 130 years since Sainsbury’s last ran a bicycle home-delivery service.
Customers can order up to 20 items from Sainsbury’s and have them delivered to their door within an hour, at a flat rate of £4.99.
The service will have a small trial from 28 September, in Wandsworth, after which close to 36,000 more postcodes will be added to the app and begin operation.
The app works by sending an order via a mobile device. Once it has been received, a Sainsbury’s staff member will collect the items, and a colleague will deliver the goods by bicycle. Customers will be able to pay via the app and track their orders.
Jon Rudoe, Sainsbury’s director of digital and technology, said, "This trial is part of our strategy to give our customers more options to shop with us whenever and wherever they want. Speed of delivery is important to some customers, so we have brought back our bicycle service to test demand further."
Sainsbury’s original delivery service was offered out of its Croydon branch in 1882, when customers made orders in store and had them delivered by horse and cart. Bicycles were introduced at the turn of the century, and Sainsbury's invested in its first delivery van in 1915.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Aoife Lawless. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
