Xmas online shopping warning

By AMAR SINGH
Updated:

 

THOUSANDS of people planning to buy seasonal groceries on the internet face a Christmas crisis, it emerged today.

Christmas pudding

A massive surge in online shopping has led to retailers such as Tesco and Asda admitting that they are struggling to meet demands.

With 10 days to go, most supermarket chains say they cannot guarantee pre-Christmas delivery and have stopped taking orders on the web.

Retailers with internet-based delivery services such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's have more than 200,000 online customers in Britain each week and are receiving hundreds of complaints over a lack of delivery capacity at a crucial time.

A spokesman for Sainsbury's said: 'Demand was quite astounding. We offered 30% more delivery slots this year but around 75% had gone within a week after we announced them.'

Research has found that supermarkets are profiting from the surge in online shopping as Christmas approaches. Sainsbury's has seen weekly orders jump from 38,000 to a record 41,000.

However, Tesco, which controls a substantial 69% of the market, says weekly internet orders increased from 170,000 to 200,000 in the first two weeks of this month and its 1,500 internet order delivery trucks are at maximum capacity.

Waitrose's online store, ocado.com, plans to deliver about 6,000 turkeys this Christmas, double online sales last year. Jason Gissing, ocado co-founder, said: 'There has been a massive surge this year.

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We could do three or four times the volume of sales, if only we had the physical capacity to deliver. Last week alone, we turned away 10,000 customers.'

The supermarkets deny they were ill-prepared, saying they encouraged regular customers to book early in November.

In October, business advice firm Deloitte predicted that online shoppers would spend over £150m a day in the run-up to Christmas. They also said that half of all shoppers will do their Christmas shopping online.

Between the end of last month and Christmas an estimated 24 million customers are expected to spend a total of £5bn - an increase of £1.5bn from last year.

In 1998 only two per cent of shoppers used online stores compared with 51% who intend to log on this year.

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