Ocado guarantees ‘greatest ever Christmas’
Ocado was one of the winners during the Covid pandemic as the demand for grocery deliveries increased. IMAGE SOURCE: Dinendra / Haria / Sopa Image / Rex / Shutterstock
Ocado has promised its grocery retail joint venture with Marks & Spencer the “Best Christmas Ever” thanks to the booming demand for online grocery delivery.
The number of customer orders increased each week for the 13 weeks through March 28.
Ocado was one of the winners during the coronavirus pandemic as lockdowns sparked a wave of customers ordering groceries online for the first time.
The surge in orders has been accompanied by pressures such as labor shortages and capacity constraints as Ocado seeks to build more warehouses to keep up with consumer demands. The company said it will spend £ 50m more than expected on investments to stay on top.
The pressure caused retail sales for the retail joint venture of Ocado and Marks & Spencer to decline 3.6% for the reporting period from 2020, although they were almost a third higher than in 2019. However, the average weekly orders of 375,100 were clear over the 345,000 in the same period in 2020.
However, Ocado said they see “strong momentum in underlying demand”. In 2022, the company expects mid-teen sales growth as it opens a new automated warehouse in Bicester, Oxfordshire, and ramping up supplies from Purfleet, Essex and Andover in Hampshire, where a warehouse was severely damaged by fire in 2019.
Ocado won a long battle against US rival AutoStore in the robotic storage area. Of five patents claimed by AutoStore, the International Trade Commission found that three were invalid, one was not infringed, and another was abandoned the night before the trial, according to the ever-growing online grocery company.
