UK online grocers gain extra £1.9bn due to impact of Covid-19
The UK online food and grocery retail market is forecast to grow 25.5% in 2020, gaining an extra £1.9 billion, as the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose respond to the coronavirus outbreak by expanding fulfilment capacity.
That’s according to GlobalData research, which includes a survey of 2,000 Brits.
Thomas Brereton, Retail Analyst, comments: “Since the surge in demand in mid-March – with 19% of the population spending more on online groceries than usual – the UK’s largest supermarkets have quickly escalated capacity to fulfil unprecedented online demand, with Sainsbury’s increasing slots by 50% and Tesco reaching the milestone of a million deliveries in a week.”
“As a result, the online grocery market is now forecast to grow 25.5% in 2020 – significantly ahead of the 8.5% previously anticipated. On top of the initial increase in volume demand (c.30% in April), a continued reluctance to venture to stores for the rest of the year will bolster online market growth over a longer period than in-store.”
Bravo!
Tesco CTO Guus Dekkers and CEO Dave Lewis recently praised the grocery giant’s technology team for their hard work during the coronavirus outbreak.
Around 2,100 employees were invited to join a broadcast last week.
“Dave wanted to take the time to recognise the work the technology team has done to help keep the business running during the Covid-19 pandemic. More than just keeping the lights on, the team has worked incredibly hard to respond to the needs of our customers and the demands the pandemic has placed on us all,” James Franklin, Head of Technology Communications, said in a LinkedIn post.
“With our entire technology workforce working remotely, and seeing a 700% increase in the use of Teams to keep us all connected, we've doubled our delivery slots capacity to more than one million a week, and spun up two new distribution centres in record time.”
“We’ve also increased the capacity on our recruitment website by a factor of 14, enabled three-quarters of our previously entirely office-based customer engagement centre team to work from home, and most importantly, provided hundreds of thousands of delivery slots per week for vulnerable customers.”
“My time with Tesco Technology is almost up, but what I've been part of here, even before the coronavirus, has been truly inspirational,” he concluded.
