Waitrose ramps up online delivery service in London area

Waitrose has announced a third London-based online centre as it looks to boost shopping slots in and around the capital.

The centre, in Greenford, West London, will be opened and operated with logistics company Wincanton and potentially could be up and running by December of this year.

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Across the country, Waitrose.com orders are mostly picked and delivered to customers from a network of Waitrose stores, covering nearly 90% of active UK postcodes. To help meet high demand in London, the retailer already has dedicated online fulfilment centres in Coulsdon and Enfield (the latter opening last month).

It says that these expansion plans helped it respond as best it could to huge demand for online grocery shopping caused by Covid-19. Waitrose has more than doubled the weekly slots that customers can book since the start of the year, to now handle more than 150,000 orders each week.

James Bailey, Executive Director, Waitrose, says: “While we’ve already pulled forward our online expansion plans by six months, we know there are still lots of people who want to shop online with us and currently can’t.”

“This is especially the case in London, where we’ve seen a significant and prolonged surge in demand for our online offer. This new centre will help us better serve the London area with a much broader range of slots.”