Asda plans e-commerce investment

Friday, April 26, 2013 - 11:32 by Simon Crisp

Last year supermarket chain Asda saw sales increase by 4.5 per cent across all of its channels, although it is in the world of safe shopping online that it is making the biggest gains.

Double digit growth from its e-commerce channel in 2012, has encouraged it to invest a considerable amount of money in making improvements to its website and online services over the course of 2013.

Asda is currently the UK's second largest provider of online grocery delivery services and it is hoping to eventually make it to the top spot, by spending a portion of a 700 million investment pot on shaping up its e-commerce offerings.

This will include expanding its non-food ranges that are available via safe shopping online, including its George clothing category and products for home and living.

Part of Asda's plan is to make its click and collect service, which allows customers to order their groceries online and then pick them up from a local store, available in a larger number of communities.

By the end of the year, around 200 of Asda's 568 British stores will offer click and collect facilities. Asda is also rolling out Collect+, which expands the network of collection and return points, to include 5,000 convenience stores.

These independent outlets will be able to send and receive non-grocery goods from the Asda Direct service, so that customers do not need to wait around at home for an order to arrive.

Asda has only been operating the click and collect scheme since last October, but it already accounts for four per cent of all online orders.

The city of York even became the first place in the country to offer drive-through click and collect pickup, which shows that Asda is keen to be innovative with its online progression.