Upmarket UK grocery retailer Waitrose has recorded a sharp increase in online sales during its 2011/12 financial year, with orders up by 29.2 per cent year-on-year, while sales for 2012/13 have so far risen by 36.8 per cent.
In a statement, the company, a subsidiary of department store retailer John Lewis, said that sales over the last seven days were also 48.4 per cent higher than the equivalent week in 2011, when the Waitrose.com website was first launched.
Waitrose said it had further experienced its strongest online Christmas yet, with sales through its website in the seven days to Christmas 2011 up by 49 per cent compared with the same period a year before.
In October last year, Waitrose further stepped up its presence in the online grocery shopping market with the opening of its first Dotcom Fulfilment Centre in Acton, West London, to dispatch online orders to shoppers in the city.
Robin Phillips, Waitrose’s director of e-commerce, said: “Our online platform has played an important role in attracting more people to shop with us over the past year as well as encouraging customers to shop using more than one channel.
“Not only has it provided the foundation for an immediate step change in our online business, the investment has also set us up for rapid expansion in e-commerce sales over the next decade.
“We continue to focus on enhancing our multi-platform offer – including enabling our customers to shop with us using mobile devices for the first time later this year.”
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