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Online shopping announcement expected from Morrisons

Tuesday, March 12, 2013 - 09:39 by Graham Miller

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The supermarket industry is being forced to evolve with changing consumer trends at the moment and it would be unthinkable for any of the UK's biggest retailers in this sector to shun e-commerce in favour of a focus on the high street.

However, of the country's most prominent supermarket chains, it is only Morrisons which has yet to embrace safe shopping online.

The Scotsman reports that this could all be set to change in the near future, as it is expected that Morrisons chief executive, Dalton Philips, will be breaking some big news in relation to e-commerce in the next few weeks.

Morrisons has made various acquisitions over the past couple of years to help it get the talent and expertise necessary to launch a grocery delivery service, which is something that it desperately needs, given that sales were apparently down by 1.2 per cent in the first two months of 2013.

Morrisons is not only facing pressure to expand into online shopping, but is also in dire need of a broader presence at the convenience level.

Rivals Tesco and Sainsbury's have been particularly aggressive in setting up smaller stores across the UK, allowing them not only to account for consumers' larger weekly shops, but also for the bits and bobs that they buy on a day to day basis.

In order to improve its standing here, Morrisons recently announced that it had purchased 49 small scale retail outlets from the now defunct Blockbuster, so you should be seeing movement in both the online and convenience spaces in the coming months.

Although sales were down by a small amount at Morrisons, the company reportedly enjoyed a rise in the sales of beef after the horsemeat scandal. This is as a result of it sourcing all of its beef from the UK.