Sainsbury's launches same-day delivery in wake of AmazonFresh foray

Sainsbury's is poised to begin trialing a same-day delivery service in London, recruiting for 470 roles as it seeks to raise its game in the wake of Amazon's launch into the grocery sector.

The FTSE 100 supermarket group said its 185,000 sq ft new online fulfilment centre in Bromley-by-Bow, East London should be open by the autumn.

Online orders from Sainsbury's are currently picked from supermarket stores across the UK, which will continue to be the method of choice, with the Bromley-by-Bow Centre is designed to enable the company to fulfil another 25,000 orders per week, helping it "keep pace with demand" in the capital.

UK supermarkets are also keen to keep pace with online retail behemoth Amazon, which launched its AmazonFresh food delivery service in London last month.

Sainsbury's, which had 101 Click & Collect grocery sites at its 12 March year-end and plans to increase this to 200 by next March, lifted sales growth from online groceries nearly 9% and order growth nearly 15% in the last financial year.

“Demand for our online delivery service in the capital continues to grow," said Robbie Feather, Sainsbury’s director of online, on Thursday. "We expect this trend to continue as more and more customers enjoy the flexibility of multi-channel shopping using our groceries website and app, in addition to visiting stores."

Feather said an increasing proportion of orders were being placed for next day delivery, "so this trial is a natural next step in delivering our strategy to help customers shop whenever and wherever they want".

Customers who order by noon will be able to pick up their orders from 1600 if they choose to ‘Click & Collect’, or receive their delivery at home from 1800.

Customers who have a Sainsbury's 'Delivery Pass' will face no additional charge, while the supermarket said the service would be "competitively priced" for other customers and free for orders over £100 delivered Monday to Thursday.

According to sector experts, the Big Four supermarkets - Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda and Morrison - are most at risk of losing spend to AmazonFresh, with some analysts also seeing dangers for online specialist Ocado.

Research firm Nielsen in June found 29% of UK shoppers were aware of the service and 57% would be very likely or likely to try it. Of these, the firm's research found 75% of likely users would be likely to use AmazonFresh once a week, nearly nine out of 10 would be likely to use the same day service and 75% would move their existing spend from a current retailer to AmazonFresh.