Grocery shopping comes of age.(Tesco, Iceland, Waitrose launch online services)(Company Business and Marketing)

Issue: Nov, 1999

High-street supermarkets start the battle for online shoppers

Supermarket wars are nothing new, but this time the battle is not over the price of cans of beans. Recent months have seen Tesco, Iceland and Waitrose launching online services.

Shoppers at the Kensington branch of Tesco can now order goods that are not available in the shop. The service, called Cyberzone, gives customers free, unrestricted access to the Internet from PCs in the store. If the scheme proves a success, the service will be extended to all of its 639 stores.

It's hoped that 100 stores will offer the Cyberzone service by February 2000. Tesco is now building warehouses to provide a wider range of products than it currently offers through its retail outlets.

Meanwhile, Iceland, the frozen food retailer, is the first supermarket to launch an Internet delivery service that covers the whole of the UK. The supermarket says this service has been made easier because it already had a telephone shopping service in place.

It says that while other retailers would have to build distribution centres, organise delivery networks and catalogue their products, Iceland had already created this infrastructure.

The service is available to people who live in a 10 mile radius of an Iceland store -- an estimated 97 percent of the population. Your order is transmitted electronically to your nearest store, where staff take stock from the shelves.

The other supermarkets in the UK are playing catch up. ASDA and Safeway do not offer an online shopping service. But Waitrose has launched a subscription-free service backed by GX Networks. The revenue from call charges are donated to charity. You can buy wine, flowers, gifts and organic fruit and vegetables from the Waitrose site.

Sainsburys has a service known as Orderline, but this only available in 10 stores in the south east of England.