Grocers have taken a hit with their online shopping services. Elaine Watson asks if they’re destined to stay costly, defensive operations
Welcome to a place where ‘softer benefits’ (not well defined) count for more than hard cash, and where retailers which are more than helpful when asked about their store business, politely remind you they are “not obliged to give out any figures” when it comes to their online operations.
One thing is for sure, say the cynics. The only thing stopping the vast majority from throwing in the online towel and putting it all down to bitter experience is the fear they’ll lose their most profitable customers to someone else if they do.
Of course, you have to speculate to accumulate, and the losses that the likes of Asda, Sainsbury and Iceland have chalked up in the last few years were largely expected.
A more pressing question is whether the online grocery market will ever get big enough for them to recoup the cash they have already spent. And even if it does, are their online businesses destined to serve purely as defensive and barely profitable operations designed simply to stop their wealthiest and most internet-savvy customers from going elsewhere for the weekly shop?
Even Tesco, the market leader, concedes that the bullish forecasts of the late 1990s, when some predicted online grocery shopping could account for 20% of food sales before 2010, were wildly ambitious.
Assumptions regarding the size of the market have been “consistently over-optimistic”, says Tesco.com chief executive John Browett. “I can remember people predicting £5bn in online grocery sales by now. I reckon it’s going to be more like £900m this year, maximum. And we’re doing well over £500m of that.”
Tesco.com was designed to make money “operating within realistic estimates of what the growth of the market would be” he insists. “We’ve spent less than £60m - a fraction of what others have invested. The cumulative losses of our competitors have run into hundreds of millions.”
Growth at Tesco.com is coming from higher average baskets - “£80 to £90 and rising”, more frequent visits to the site, and from new customers, he claims.
Non-food is growing faster than food, though it remains a relatively small proportion of overall volume.
Baird analyst Paul Smiddy says it will be tough for those that came to the market later to take business from Tesco, which also offers a wide range of non-food items via its site. “It’s survival of the fittest. All other things being equal, if you have a choice of a few thousand lines at Iceland, or 30,000 at Tesco
- plus the choice of all the latest CDs and DVDs - which would you pick?”
However, Sainsbury head of online marketing Penny Slatter claims switching analysis data from TNS shows that Sainsbury’s to You is actually taking business from Tesco. Meanwhile, costs are coming down through more effective use of drivers, better route planning, a mixture of picking models (The Grocer, December 13, p6) and increasing volumes through the site.
Losses - a staggering £19m in the first half of 2002 - have been reduced to £10m in the first half of 2003.
Asda has an unhappy track record on the online shopping front, investing in two hi-tech picking depots to support growth only to close them again last spring due to lack of demand. Orders are now fulfilled from just over 30 stores, the only figure Asda is willing to publish relating to its online venture - not something that inspires much confidence, says Smiddy. Nevertheless, “Wal-Mart has deep pockets, and can afford to be patient”.
Precisely how much money Iceland is losing at its online shopping operation is hard to quantify. The company has disputed Smiddy’s estimates published last December that it was losing £4m to £5m a year compared to £1m in 1999/2000, but refuses to comment on the profitability of the service or give a breakeven date.
Iceland marketing director Nick Canning claims start-up costs were moderate as the company utilised existing infrastructure such as home delivery trucks to set up its operation at low cost. However, at about £60, average basket sizes at Iceland.co.uk are way behind rivals with a larger range, says Teather & Greenwood analyst Dave Stoddart. “They are never going to get to £100.”
So who is actually making money out of online food shopping?
Waitrose Deliver, which is operating from about 35 stores, is already profitable at an operational level, claims Waitrose director of selling and marketing Mark Price. “We have the highest average basket size, pushing £100, and we’re picking up people that would typically do secondary shopping with us instore and turning them into regular customers using us for their main shop.”
Irish retailer Superquinn is equally bullish, with turnover at its online shopping portal Superquinn.ie now approaching 5% of the chain’s annual sales and profitable at an operational level, claims the company (The Grocer, December 6, p10).
However, David Noble, formerly operations director of Somerfield’s ill-fated online shopping business 24:7, and now on the board of Russian supermarket chain Pyaterochka, remains sceptical about the money-making potential of grocery sites. “If everyone is allocating costs correctly, I have doubts anyone is making money.”
The charge that store picking operations such as Tesco.com are burying the costs of their online activities elsewhere in the accounts is vigorously disputed by Browett. “If we were really losing millions on online shopping, we couldn’t hide that in the P& L. Besides what’s the point? This business has to stand on its own feet, and everything is accounted for separately, from obvious things like vans and staff costs to allocation of waste, shrink issues, IT and marketing.”
As for rivals, says Browett, “if we were working with their order, pick and drop rates, we would be losing money too. It’s hard to make money in this business until you get to £250m in sales. Having said that, I have been surprised by the scale of the losses they have reported.” The key to profitability, he says, is “drop density in a narrowly defined geography and time”.
Exel business director, retail, Paul Richardson, who has been working with Asda on its online fulfilment for two years, says: “Fewer than 50 orders a day per store, and anyone would struggle to make store picking pay. The larger Asda stores are getting about 75-100 orders a day. The optimum number is 100.”
As for Ocado, which has burned through the best part of £100m to date, the logisticians remain sceptical. Will Treasure, a director at Javelin Group, which has been working with Iceland.co.uk on online replenishment, says: “Ocado has a fantastic piece of kit in Hatfield, but if they are not breaking even operationally by next year, I can’t see them being around in five years.”
All sides agree Christmas will be critical, as many people will use the internet to do their food shopping for the first time, and the latest figures from e-tail experts IMRG show visits to food retail sites were up more than 21% in November 2003 compared to November 2002.
The clever retailers are those that can appeal to these new users and keep their business, says Noble. “After you’ve got them, you can introduce them to other products and build on that relationship.”
Deloitte Consulting partner Mike PreFontaine says food retailers must take the long-term view for online shopping. “Few may actually be making money directly from their presence, but they are benefiting from the internet - coupled with their traditional outlets - as a way to build their brand, increase consumer choice and encourage loyalty.”
Welcome to a place where ‘softer benefits’ (not well defined) count for more than hard cash, and where retailers which are more than helpful when asked about their store business, politely remind you they are “not obliged to give out any figures” when it comes to their online operations.
One thing is for sure, say the cynics. The only thing stopping the vast majority from throwing in the online towel and putting it all down to bitter experience is the fear they’ll lose their most profitable customers to someone else if they do.
Of course, you have to speculate to accumulate, and the losses that the likes of Asda, Sainsbury and Iceland have chalked up in the last few years were largely expected.
A more pressing question is whether the online grocery market will ever get big enough for them to recoup the cash they have already spent. And even if it does, are their online businesses destined to serve purely as defensive and barely profitable operations designed simply to stop their wealthiest and most internet-savvy customers from going elsewhere for the weekly shop?
Even Tesco, the market leader, concedes that the bullish forecasts of the late 1990s, when some predicted online grocery shopping could account for 20% of food sales before 2010, were wildly ambitious.
Assumptions regarding the size of the market have been “consistently over-optimistic”, says Tesco.com chief executive John Browett. “I can remember people predicting £5bn in online grocery sales by now. I reckon it’s going to be more like £900m this year, maximum. And we’re doing well over £500m of that.”
Tesco.com was designed to make money “operating within realistic estimates of what the growth of the market would be” he insists. “We’ve spent less than £60m - a fraction of what others have invested. The cumulative losses of our competitors have run into hundreds of millions.”
Growth at Tesco.com is coming from higher average baskets - “£80 to £90 and rising”, more frequent visits to the site, and from new customers, he claims.
Non-food is growing faster than food, though it remains a relatively small proportion of overall volume.
Baird analyst Paul Smiddy says it will be tough for those that came to the market later to take business from Tesco, which also offers a wide range of non-food items via its site. “It’s survival of the fittest. All other things being equal, if you have a choice of a few thousand lines at Iceland, or 30,000 at Tesco
- plus the choice of all the latest CDs and DVDs - which would you pick?”
However, Sainsbury head of online marketing Penny Slatter claims switching analysis data from TNS shows that Sainsbury’s to You is actually taking business from Tesco. Meanwhile, costs are coming down through more effective use of drivers, better route planning, a mixture of picking models (The Grocer, December 13, p6) and increasing volumes through the site.
Losses - a staggering £19m in the first half of 2002 - have been reduced to £10m in the first half of 2003.
Asda has an unhappy track record on the online shopping front, investing in two hi-tech picking depots to support growth only to close them again last spring due to lack of demand. Orders are now fulfilled from just over 30 stores, the only figure Asda is willing to publish relating to its online venture - not something that inspires much confidence, says Smiddy. Nevertheless, “Wal-Mart has deep pockets, and can afford to be patient”.
Precisely how much money Iceland is losing at its online shopping operation is hard to quantify. The company has disputed Smiddy’s estimates published last December that it was losing £4m to £5m a year compared to £1m in 1999/2000, but refuses to comment on the profitability of the service or give a breakeven date.
Iceland marketing director Nick Canning claims start-up costs were moderate as the company utilised existing infrastructure such as home delivery trucks to set up its operation at low cost. However, at about £60, average basket sizes at Iceland.co.uk are way behind rivals with a larger range, says Teather & Greenwood analyst Dave Stoddart. “They are never going to get to £100.”
So who is actually making money out of online food shopping?
Waitrose Deliver, which is operating from about 35 stores, is already profitable at an operational level, claims Waitrose director of selling and marketing Mark Price. “We have the highest average basket size, pushing £100, and we’re picking up people that would typically do secondary shopping with us instore and turning them into regular customers using us for their main shop.”
Irish retailer Superquinn is equally bullish, with turnover at its online shopping portal Superquinn.ie now approaching 5% of the chain’s annual sales and profitable at an operational level, claims the company (The Grocer, December 6, p10).
However, David Noble, formerly operations director of Somerfield’s ill-fated online shopping business 24:7, and now on the board of Russian supermarket chain Pyaterochka, remains sceptical about the money-making potential of grocery sites. “If everyone is allocating costs correctly, I have doubts anyone is making money.”
The charge that store picking operations such as Tesco.com are burying the costs of their online activities elsewhere in the accounts is vigorously disputed by Browett. “If we were really losing millions on online shopping, we couldn’t hide that in the P& L. Besides what’s the point? This business has to stand on its own feet, and everything is accounted for separately, from obvious things like vans and staff costs to allocation of waste, shrink issues, IT and marketing.”
As for rivals, says Browett, “if we were working with their order, pick and drop rates, we would be losing money too. It’s hard to make money in this business until you get to £250m in sales. Having said that, I have been surprised by the scale of the losses they have reported.” The key to profitability, he says, is “drop density in a narrowly defined geography and time”.
Exel business director, retail, Paul Richardson, who has been working with Asda on its online fulfilment for two years, says: “Fewer than 50 orders a day per store, and anyone would struggle to make store picking pay. The larger Asda stores are getting about 75-100 orders a day. The optimum number is 100.”
As for Ocado, which has burned through the best part of £100m to date, the logisticians remain sceptical. Will Treasure, a director at Javelin Group, which has been working with Iceland.co.uk on online replenishment, says: “Ocado has a fantastic piece of kit in Hatfield, but if they are not breaking even operationally by next year, I can’t see them being around in five years.”
All sides agree Christmas will be critical, as many people will use the internet to do their food shopping for the first time, and the latest figures from e-tail experts IMRG show visits to food retail sites were up more than 21% in November 2003 compared to November 2002.
The clever retailers are those that can appeal to these new users and keep their business, says Noble. “After you’ve got them, you can introduce them to other products and build on that relationship.”
Deloitte Consulting partner Mike PreFontaine says food retailers must take the long-term view for online shopping. “Few may actually be making money directly from their presence, but they are benefiting from the internet - coupled with their traditional outlets - as a way to build their brand, increase consumer choice and encourage loyalty.”
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