Truce is over as Waitrose hits Ocado

The truce is over: Waitrose hits Ocado
12 April 2012

Waitrose and Ocado are poised to go head-to-head in smoked salmon and chablis "van wars" across London for the first time this summer.

The upmarket grocery chain advertised by Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal is to roll out its own online delivery service, Waitrose.com, from the start of next month and plans to have the entire capital covered by the middle of August.

It ends a legal "truce" signed between Ocado, which delivers mainly Waitrose products, and its former sister company that expires on July 1. It banned Waitrose from offering home deliveries within the M25.

Initially the deliveries will be handled by individual Waitrose stores but they will be serviced from a central depot in Acton from the autumn.

Waitrose, which first pioneered home delivery in the Thirties, says its service will be closer to the experience of shopping in a store than any of its competitors.

A spokeswoman said: "If you've got a recipe that says you need one red onion and two carrots you will be able to specify that, you won't have to buy a big bag. As a shopper that is really, really helpful.

Also if you want to cook a Delia or Heston recipe you can just click on it and all the ingredients for that recipe will be delivered."

Waitrose has spent more than £10 million on the website that will handle the orders and the service is already up and running outside the M25 at 150 stores. It has also been trialled at 16 London and home counties branches on a limited basis.

A huge marketing and advertising campaign will promote the service with the slogan "we shop like you shop."

It will be free for orders over £50. Deliveries can be booked within a two-hour slot from individual stores and a one-hour window from the depot.

City analysts said Waitrose's assault represented a "significant step up in competition for Ocado", which has been embraced by Londoners but has yet to make a full-year profit almost a decade after it was set up.

Ocado sources said they were relaxed about the competition and said it tended to gain customers every time a rival online service launched. "It helps the whole market get bigger," the source said.

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