Sainsbury's to double pre-COVID-19 online capacity by end of October

LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Sainsbury's, Britain's
second largest supermarket group, will have doubled its
pre-COVID-19 pandemic online capacity by the end of next month,
it said on Monday.

It said it will be able to handle 700,000 online grocery
orders a week - a combination of home delivery and click and
collect - by the end of October, meaning it will have doubled
capacity since the beginning of March.

Online grocery shopping has gone from around 7% of the UK
market at the start of the pandemic to about 15% currently and
pure online player Ocado reckons it could reach 30%
over the next few years.

To meet demand Sainsbury's has added almost 200 new click
and collect locations and nearly 1,000 more online delivery vans
in comparison with last year. The group is also extending
delivery times from 6:30 AM to 11:30 PM so it can serve more
customers.

Britain's big four grocers - market leader Tesco,
Sainsbury's, Walmart owned Asda and Morrisons -
were quickly able to adapt their predominantly store-pick model
to boost online capacity, enabling them to deliver growth and
win share in the short term.

In contrast Ocado's capital-intensive and centralised
fulfilment model meant it has not been able to dramatically
increase its capacity during the crisis.

(Reporting by James Davey, Editing by Paul Sandle)