George at Asda release campaign for new maternity wear range
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Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, more and more Britons have been relying on online deliveries to be able to do their shopping. However, with the UK’s economy slowly reopening, people will now be spending less time at home than before – meaning that not everyone is going to be at the door when deliveries arrive.
Asda wants to solve the problem of delivering orders when customers are not at home.
To do this, the supermarket is installing secure “delivery boxes” at shoppers’ homes.
This is part of a trial in various parts of the country and might be rolled out to other areas if successful.
Available in two different sizes, the boxes have capacity for up to four or six bags of shopping.
The boxes are first being trialled in locations in Yorkshire, the north east of England, southern England, and Wales.
The idea behind Asda’s new initiative is that when an online order is dropped off at a customer’s house, the delivery driver can enter a code on the box that allows them to open it and put the order inside.
The driver can then lock the box, meaning that the shopping is safe until the customer arrives home.
This means that shoppers do not need to be present when their delivery arrives, as they normally would have to be with the current system.
Although customers do not need to be home when a delivery is made, Asda advised shoppers to take frozen or chilled items out of the box after four hours due to health and safety reasons.
The boxes are being installed by Asda for free at some customers’ homes as part of a 12-week trial.
However, an Asda spokesperson told The Grocer that the supermarket plans to “grow the trial further this year”.
The spokesperson also spoke about the boxes’ material and their ability to store various types of food.
They said: “The four-hour window is unaffected by either warm or cold weather. We use insulating materials to maintain the correct product temperature on frozen and chilled items stored in the box.”
Additionally, Simon Gregg, Vice President of Online Grocery at Asda, commented on the new scheme.
He said: “As things begin to open up again, the boxes provide a convenient way for customers involved in the trial to take delivery of their regular shop while they are not at home.”
Bryan Roberts, Retail Analyst at retail and shopper consultant Shopfloor Insights, gave his analysis on the initiative, saying: “This could be a good solution in the longer-term once people start returning to work in offices, as at the moment home delivery has never been more convenient with plenty of people in their homes most of the time.
“There might be some concerns about security and there are some obvious complications concerning age-restricted items, but the concept does have a degree of merit,” Mr Roberts added.
“This sort of solution has been much discussed since online grocery first started and there have been plenty of trials around the world, but not much so far in terms of meaningful widespread deployment.”
Asda is not the only supermarket to trial a service where groceries can be delivered without customers being at home.
Since 2018, Waitrose has been testing a similar system, but the retailer said that it had recently brought it to an end because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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