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Morrisons suffers as e-commerce service remains in planning stages

Wednesday, May 15, 2013 - 16:00 by Simon Crisp

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Although Morrisons is the fourth biggest supermarket retailer in the country, it has seen its sales slide for yet another time over the past three months, according to Management Today.

A 1.8 per cent dip in sales experienced by the retailer is being blamed once more on the retailer's lack of an e-commerce website.

There has been plenty of publicity surrounding Morrisons' development of its online grocery delivery services, although so far, nothing concrete has actually surfaced. This week it released a statement in which it said that it is still in negotiations with Ocado, to see if a partnership can be formed, but for the moment, no final provisions have been settled upon.

By not offering safe shopping online to its customers, Morrisons is missing the boat on e-commerce and allowing rivals like Tesco and Sainsbury's to leach loyal shoppers away. There were even signs that Morrisons is losing a grip of the market in the northerly areas of the UK, where it initially found success.

Budget retailers, including Aldi and Lidl, are stepping into the fray, which means Morrisons is facing a battle both at bricks and mortar stores and online.

There were even more compelling reasons to use safe shopping online to buy groceries revealed this week, thanks to research conducted by the British Retail Consortium.

It was discovered that there is often a major discrepancy between the price of products at major supermarkets and the smaller convenience stores that they operate.

In some circumstances, a shopping basket can cost 40 per cent more at a Tesco Express than it would at one of the chain's superstores.

Using e-commerce sites to buy groceries and other goods means that consumers can get the best possible price and combine this with total convenience.