Tesco has announced that same-day delivery, previously only available to customers in London and the South East, will soon become available across the country and will cover 99% of towns and cities.
From August, the service will allow shoppers to place orders and have them delivered to their door within 12 hours. It will be known as as ‘Flexi-saver home delivery’ and will be available from 300 Tesco stores from the Shetland Islands to Cornwall.
Customers need to place their order online by 1pm and their shopping will be delivered from 7pm onwards and into the evening. Delivery slots will cost between £3 and £8 a pop and, outside the capital, Sunday delivery will not be available.
Of the new service, Adrian Letts of Tesco Online said: “Customers tell us they like getting their shopping delivered quickly and conveniently, and with our same day delivery service they can now order by lunch to get their shopping delivered for their evening meal. We’ve seen the service grow in popularity since we launched it in London and the South East so we’re really excited to be rolling it out to customers nationwide.”
This is a clear response to Amazon’s recent forays into the UK grocery market. Don’t forget that in the past month Tesco launched the ‘Tesco Now’ app which allows shoppers to order groceries and have them delivered within 60-minutes via moped. It’s only available in London and comes with a £7.99 price tag per delivery. Sainsbury’s launched a similar service last year.
Amazon has said it wants to grasp a 2% share of the grocery market with its various offerings for food and household items and it will be interesting to see how that goes over time. But what’s clear is that the traditional supermarkets are responding to the threat with sleeker services and technology.
