Ocado

Five questions raised by the Amazon & Morrisons grocery deal

The deal that will see Amazon supplied wholesale fresh produce by Morrisons has fascinated the media.

Could Amazon Pantry’s entry to fresh online groceries in the UK shake up the already volatile supermarket landscape?

Here are five questions raised by the deal.

Will Amazon Pantry and Fresh succeed in 2016?

Despite high market penetration relative to other countries, the UK still seems like it hasn’t got its head around online groceries.

That’s why 2016 will be so interesting, as Amazon continues to finesse its Pantry offering in the UK, which rolled out in November 2015.

Will online groceries ever become less the domain of poor mobile experiences, inflexible delivery and locker trials, and more a fast and regular supplement to local shopping at smaller shops?

I’ve rounded up some analysis of what might happen in 2016.

How grocery retailers use email to convert new customers

In recent weeks I’ve been conducting various user tests on grocery store websites, and in the process I’ve registered my details with most of the UK’s biggest brands.

My inbox is now slowly filling up with welcome emails and other marketing messages trying to lure me back to their ecommerce sites.

Ocado vs. Sainsbury’s: customer journey comparison

Despite the increase in online grocery sales over the past few years ecommerce still only accounts for a fraction of the overall market.

This means there’s huge growth potential for digital sales in this industry, but are the UK’s major grocery retailers positioned to take advantage of it?

Five brands hoping new click-and-collect services will deliver profits

Click-and-collect is now a must-have delivery option for online retailers as consumers expect to be able to pick up their purchases at a time that is convenient to them.

In 2013 around 70m deliveries were made through click-and-collect, a figure that’s expected to grow to around 82m by 2018.

In recent weeks UK retailers have been pushing ahead with new initiatives aimed at giving customers even more choice when it comes to collecting their purchases.

Here’s a round up of several businesses that are aiming to increase profits using click-and-collect.

What do Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Ocado have in common? Poor online checkouts

Ecommerce accounts for around 5% of all grocery shopping in the UK and is set to be worth around £7.5bn this year.

That figure is predicted to grow to just over £11bn by 2016, so it’s certainly a market that’s worthy of attention.

I only recently made my first online grocery order and wasn’t particularly enamoured with the user experience, so thought I’d trial the checkouts of the three big supermarkets – Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda – plus online-only retailer Ocado.

Ocado tops grocery website usability study

Ecommerce is still a relatively small part of the overall grocery industry, making up just 3.4% of sales.

However it’s growing rapidly, and in October it was estimated that Tesco received almost 10m visits to its site while Asda received around 5m.

With this in mind, QuBit has published a new usability benchmark that compares the onsite performance and user experience of the top five UK online supermarkets: Tesco, Asda, Ocado, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s.

It follows the same format as previous whitepapers that looked at the online gambling and airline industries.

Ocado launches iPhone shopping app

Online grocery retailer Ocado has just launched an iPhone app for customers to create shopping lists and order groceries, which makes it the first online supermarket to move into mobile commerce.

I’ve been trying out the ‘Ocado on the Go‘ app…