Morrisons will expand home deliveries nationwide and add thousands of non-food items to its online offering.
The supermarket agreed a new deal with partner Ocado which will allow the online specialist to offer its services to other retailers, with the exception of Morrisons’ rival supermarkets Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi and Lidl.
Only half of UK households are currently able to order shops from Morrisons for home delivery. The South West and Scotland will now have that ability for the first time.
Morrisons chief executive David Potts said: “The new investments in online growth are further examples of Morrisons building a broader business and will allow millions more customers all over Britain to enjoy Morrisons’ good-quality fresh food and great value for money.”
The digital revolution should be embraced if retailers are going to remain relevant in the marketplace.
That is easier said than done as many are struggling to attract digital talent.
Morrisons, which is based in Yorkshire, was slow to join the move towards online ordering compared with its rivals and has been playing catch-up since.
Its customers will be served from Morrisons stores and Ocado’s central warehouse in Warwickshire.
As part of the new deal, Ocado – which is traditionally associated with Waitrose deliveries – will develop a new IT system for use in ordering while Morrisons will cut its funding towards Ocado’s research and development by a half.
It will fund Ocado to the tune of £4m a year from 2018 and no longer pay it a 25 per cent cut of online profits.
The supermarket will, however, cover 30 per cent of the costs of developing Ocado’s new distribution centre in south London, due to open in 2018.