Online grocery shopping comes to Shetland

Wednesday, February 5, 2014 - 12:40 by Graham Miller

Shopping online has extended its reach into some of the UK's most isolated areas, because with postal delivery available for products of all shapes and sizes, there are few parts of the country which cannot be accessed.

This has helped to break down boundaries and means that people in rural communities have access to just as many retail opportunities as those in towns and cities.

But when it comes to grocery shopping things are a little different, because getting food delivered door to door requires yet more infrastructural elements to be in place.

And until this year, people living in Shetland off the coast of Scotland have been unable to place grocery orders via safe shopping online with one of Britain's biggest outlets, Tesco.

But now the firm has announced that grocery shopping on the web will be available to customers on this archipelago, once it has completed updates to a local store, turning it into an effective distribution centre.

The reason for the move is that there was much demand from locals for the ability to shop online, convincing the supermarket that it could viably make sure a service is available even in the far reaches of the country.

Spokesperson, Paul Clelland, said that those living in the region typically had to cover significant distances in order to buy food and goods that those living on the mainland take for granted, so offering convenience and efficiency through an online grocery ordering service seems like the right thing to do.

The construction work on the local store which will help it to serve people placing online orders has already begun and Tesco is hoping to be able to accept the first orders by May. So there is only a short wait ahead of Shetland residents before they too can benefit from e-commerce technology.