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LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Aldi UK, the British
arm of the German supermarket discounter, said on Monday it was
trialing a click-and-collect grocery service for the first time.
Britain's fifth-largest supermarket group, trading from 894
stores, has been expanding its channels to customers.
In April it started selling online food parcels to help
self-isolating and vulnerable customers during the coronavirus
crisis and is also ramping-up a rapid delivery service in
partnership with Deliveroo.
It said it was currently running a trial of the
click-and-collect service for Aldi staff from a store in central
England and plans to extend that to customers in the coming
weeks.
If that proved successful the trial would be extended to
further stores across the country in the near future.
The current trial allows Aldi staff to choose from a full
range of grocery items online, then drive to their local store
where they can have their shopping brought to their cars by
store staff contact-free, in line with social distancing rules.
Customers will be offered timeslots to arrive at dedicated
click-and-collect points in store car parks, where they can pick
up their shopping.
Online grocery shopping has doubled its share of the UK
market to 14% since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and
online pioneer Ocado reckons it could reach 30% over
the next few years.
(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Sarah Young)
Ocado (OCDO)