Name: Laura Burbedge
Title: Director of online, Waitrose
How have you worked to improve Waitrose’s online experience over the past year? Customers can now add ingredients from recipes on our website directly to their basket. And we’ve added a new ‘bundle’ feature on our app and website to make it easier for customers to find great offers and meal deals. Elsewhere, My Waitrose vouchers are now added automatically to members’ baskets when they check out.
It’s not just about the online experience either – to help reduce the environmental impact of our deliveries, customers can now choose slots marked with a green leaf, which indicate when a driver is already going to be in their local area.
How has the cost of living crisis affected online orders? We’ve found that, while people are spending less on eating out, they are still looking to get that ‘going out’ experience at home. In response, we’ve seen more customers buying into our great value meal deals, our premium No.1 range, and new products like our wagyu steak range.
Waitrose has ramped up its on-demand delivery offer. What advantages do third-party platforms give Waitrose? It’s about being there for our customers for whatever they need. We currently have more than 260 shops across the country providing on-demand groceries, which helps us to reach new customers. A younger demographic of customers shop via on-demand grocery. They buy a lot of the same products and categories as we see in our main online business, like fruit & veg, and meat, fish and eggs. But we’ve also seen an uptick in on demand grocery customers buying into our premium brands like Duchy Organic.
Waitrose is focusing its store rollout on convenience, which includes new delivery hatches. Does this mean on-demand will be the main focus of your online investment? On-demand is important but it is not our only focus. Our convenience rollout plans are designed primarily for walk-in customers, making it easier to access Waitrose in their local neighbourhoods or busy commuter areas.
Alongside this, Waitrose.com remains key, as we know there is a growing number of customers who love the convenience of having their weekly shop delivered to their doorstep. We have some exciting new features coming this year, inspired by what our customers have told us they would like to see.
Tell me more about the green leaf, what else are you doing to make eccomerce more ecofriendly? We offer four-hour delivery slots, which give us more flexibility to plan our delivery routes, and we also have one-hour slots marked with a green leaf, which allow us to deliver to multiple customers in the same area - both of which help to reduce the distance our vans cover on the road.
Looking ahead, we have the ambition to move towards an all-electric delivery van fleet. We already have one London shop that is fully electric, and we are running trials in a few locations across the country to learn how to make this work best for our customers and our drivers.
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