Dyson exec questions food delivery model as coronavirus hits hard

A Dyson executive has called on UK supermarkets to flip the current online delivery model on its head as the coronavirus outbreak intensifies.

In a LinkedIn post, Chris Aubrey, Global VP Dyson Demo Stores, asks: “Instead of shoppers booking delivery slots, can you offer them a pre-allocated delivery slot? Do you have a way of identifying the most vulnerable of your customers and prioritising them? Could you pro-actively offer vulnerable shoppers a delivery slot?”

“You already know who is registered with you for online shopping (by now, probably almost every household in the country) - you could book the most efficient delivery routes to cover groups of houses that are close together in one run,” he adds.

“If you build in that level of efficiency to the delivery model, can you significantly increase the number of deliveries that each van can make in a day? By doing that, can you make sure that every household in the UK is allocated one delivery slot a week? Can you work together with the other supermarkets to make sure all UK households are covered?” Aubrey concludes.

Under 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.”

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 put 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…