Tesco.com, the world’s largest on-line grocer, today announced it has achieved
over £500 million annual on-line grocery sales.
Industry statistics show Tesco.com now receives far more visitors to its
site than the combined traffic of its on-line grocery competitors.
The move sees Tesco.com accelerating its lead on the competition and consolidating
its place as the UK’s most successful on-line supermarket.
Since its national launch, Tesco.com has gone from strength to strength,
achieving as many sales in December 2003 as it achieved in the whole of 1998.
It is currently the only on-line grocer in the UK to service 96% of the population
with a fleet of 1,000 vans who already deliver over 110,000 orders a week.
Tesco.com now sells everything from books and CD’s to acoustic guitars and
holidays. Its non-food business has enjoyed massive growth with an uplift
of 50% this Christmas, a trend which has continued into the New Year.
The latest innovative move by Tesco.com was the launch of a phone ordering
service for its flower and wine delivery service.
It is this innovative approach that has kept Tesco.com ahead of the game,
Chief Executive Laura Wade-Gery believes. She said:
"The fact that we achieved as many sales this December (2003) as we
did in the whole of 1998 shows Tesco.com is still growing at a phenomenal
rate.
"The key reason for this is the fact we offer unbeatable value – customers
don’t see why they should make sacrifices on price or range to take advantage
of home delivery and neither do we.
"We’re always giving customers something new – this week we’ve launched
Wines Direct, giving our shoppers the change to buy exclusive wines, which
aren’t available in our stores, over the phone or on-line.
"We’ve many more innovations coming up later this year.
"Our customers can even swap utility supplier to a better deal through
Tesco.com, it’s that kind of innovative approach to retailing which has kept
us one step ahead."
Tesco.com History
Tesco.com was founded in 1995 by a project team of six Tesco staff tasked
with looking at different ways for the supermarket to launch a home delivery
service.
After experimenting with faxing and catalogues, the team decided that the
Internet was going to provide the best way of delivery home shopping for customers.
While competitors spent thousands of pounds on warehouses, Tesco developed
an in-store picking method that was launched as a trial initially in just
100 stores.
Within a year Tesco.com rolled out nationwide and today services 96% of the
UK population.
Today Tesco.com is the world’s biggest on-line grocer and has exported its
service to America, South Korea and the Republic of Ireland. This December
saw the retailer deliver a record half a million orders over the month. Alongside
this Tesco.com is experiencing massive growth in it’s non-food delivery service.
Phone ordering services for Wine and Flowers were recently launched and are
already proving a hit with shoppers.
