Morrisons ecommerce site goes live

By Gemma McKenna

Published: 10 January, 2014

Morrisons has joined its competitors with its first total grocery ecommerce website, which went live earlier today, January 10.

The supermarket is the last of the Big Four to make its entire range available to buy online, although it launched a wine-by-the-case site back in 2012 called Morrisons Cellar. The multiple has partnered with Ocado, which has long been working with rival upmarket retailer Waitrose, to deliver its online offer.

The new site will permit customers to import "favourites" lists that they have built up on rival sites at Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda, allowing the retailer to steal a march on competitors. As part of the service customers can choose one-hour delivery slots and place orders via PCs, smartphones, tablets and a mobile app.

Initially the site will only be available in Warwickshire and West Yorkshire this month, but Morrisons plans to have a service in place for London by the summer, and that it will be available to 50% of UK households by the end of 2014.

The launch comes on the back of poor results over the festive season, with like-for-like sales down 5.6% in the six weeks to January 5.

Steve Mosey Steve Mosey

In a recent interview with Harpers, BWS category manager Steve Mosey was bullish about how far Morrisons can go in wine. "We have the greatest untapped potential for wine here. We have a £100 million opportunity to utilise our fair share in wine," he said, based on the level wine would trade at if it matched its overall share in grocery.

On the Morrisons' Cellar site, Mosey told Harpers: "We are more than happy with how the site is performing," adding that it was on budget for its first year performance.

The group is also making major changes in rolling out its convenience arm, M Local, and is playing catch up to its competitors, and hoping to leapfrog them on this front too. It now has more than 50 of its M Local convenience stores and promises 100 by the end of the financial year.

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