Waitrose is to lower its online minimum spend to £40 in “a few weeks”, following its split from Ocado last week.
The supermarket has lowered the threshold from £60 in response to customer feedback and demand for smaller basket sizes. The change puts Waitrose on a par with the big four in terms of online minimum spend.
It told customers on Twitter it was “finalising timings” for the move.
“The change is in response to customer demand, with many people telling us that they want to switch to Waitrose.com, and will do so given the option of a smaller basket size,” a Waitrose spokeswoman told The Grocer.
Waitrose.com is now the only place to order its grocery items online following the end of its two-decade long partnership with Ocado on 1 September. M&S kicked off its own joint venture with the online specialist on the same day, but experienced several teething issues that left some customers having deliveries cancelled with less than 12 hours’ notice.
Ocado blamed a “surge in demand” for M&S products for the problems that affected a “very, very small number of orders”.
Ocado fulfils an average of 50,000 orders per day and would not disclose specific figures for last week, while Waitrose achieved a “record week”, picking almost 30,000 orders on Friday (4 September). This is 3,000 more than its previous busiest-ever single day and comes as part of its target of increasing its online shopping slots from 160,000 a week to 250,000 by 2021.
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