November 2000

The role of Last Mile Solutions in the Waitrose e-commerce universe became clearer as the supermarket chain rolled out its own grocery home delivery trials in south-east England in November.

WAITROSEdeliver, as the in-house service is now known, will operate mainly in rural and branch areas, while the LMS partnership will be delivering the Waitrose product range to areas with a high population density. These will include centres outside the established Waitrose branch heartland; Waitrose is primarily southern-based, but it aims to make its e-commerce offering available nationwide. The two companies will operate separate Web sites, but users will be cross-referred automatically according to postcode. The trial revolves round individual stores, and involves 800 account-card holders in Abingdon, Petersfield, Stevenage and Buckhurst Hill. Non-account holders will be drawn in later, and the service is due to go fully live at 40 branches by next spring. Shoppers will choose either to have goods delivered to them or to have them held at their local branch for collection, paying £5 and £3 respectively. Minimum order value is £50. Waitrose claims to be the first e-tailer presenting graphic images of all products on its Web site. It is starting with 4,000 items, which will increase to 12,000 by next April. According to Mark Price, director of selling and marketing: "Our aim is to take the lead in terms of usability, visual appeal and quality of assortment offer."