Brits fume as online grocers buckle under coronavirus pressure
When Boris Johnson earlier this week ushered in lockdown measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak, he advised Brits to use online food delivery services whenever possible.
Yeah, right, muttered long suffering shoppers across the nation. It’s already tough to get delivery slots. A lockdown means that it will now be next to impossible.
To quote comedian, author, screenwriter and TV presenter, David Baddiel: “Keen to follow the government guidelines about using home delivery for groceries, although had hoped that the pandemic might be over by the time of the first available delivery slot of every supermarket which appears to be mid-2022.”
TV presenter and journalist Susanna Reid also neatly summed up the state of play perfectly when she announced on Twitter: “Trying to get supermarket home delivery? Morrisons 'no slots available', Tesco 'no slots available', Sainsbury's rightly prioritising elderly, vulnerable, disabled customers but no click & collect slots available. Ocado 'you are in virtual queue position 8733' 4 hour wait.”
Sadly, BoJo failed to grasp that, for all the hype, online accounts for a small slice of the UK food market. There simply isn’t enough capacity, drivers, vans etc for e-commerce players to suddenly step up and ease the burden on physical stores, particularly as demand spikes due to stockpiling and people buying more as they’re not able to eat out.
As Ocado CEO Melanie Smith puts it: “We currently have 10 times more demand for our services now than we did before the outbreak began, and with every announcement, we see a further extraordinary surge of customers to Ocado.com. No matter how hard we work, we will not have enough capacity to serve the unprecedented levels of demand.”
Final word to Tesco boss Dave Lewis who, in an email sent to customers yesterday, said: “We know that it’s difficult right now to get a delivery slot for online shopping. We are at full capacity for the next few weeks and we ask those who are able to safely come to stores to do so, instead of shopping online, so that we can start to free up more slots for the more vulnerable.”
So, in a nutshell, ignore the PM and shop in stores. Just hope and prey that they’ve not run out of milk, loo roll, eggs, beans, soap etc when you hit the high street…
Food for thought
COVID-19 will have a long-term positive effect on the e-commerce sector, with even sceptical consumers forced to abandon physical stores in response to restrictions on movement, according to GlobalData.
And this impact will be most noticeable in the food and grocery segment, where online penetration is currently lower than average across the retail sector.
“While food and grocery sales surge, clothing and footwear retailers will suffer as consumers are forced to work from home, events are cancelled, and pubs and restaurants closed. Online channels will fare better than high street stores, but retailers such as Asos and Boohoo will still see a significant reduction in sales,” says Ed Thomas, Research Director at GlobalData.
