Tesco has opened its fifth dot-com only store at Crawley in West Sussex to meet growing demand for home delivery.
The retailer uses dot-com stores to extend the number of delivery slots and offer customers a wider range of products – more than 26,000 lines.
Tesco’s online business has shown 15 per cent like-for-like growth in the most recent quarter. Barney Burgess, chief operating officer for grocery home shopping said: “Dot-com stores are an increasingly important part of our service for customers. More and more customers are using their computers and smart phones to shop. This state of the art facility will increase our capacity in the area, enabling us to offer an excellent and convenient service to our customers.”
The 120,000 sq ft Crawley warehouse follows the automation model launched at Enfield, which opened a year ago.
Products are stacked according to their popularity with customers, rather than by product type, which helps the personal shoppers work more efficiently. Trays move on conveyor belts to the personal shoppers, who can focus on product selection in their area.
The site is creating 700 jobs including personal shoppers, team managers, drivers and support personnel.
Its other dot-com sites are at Greenford, Aylesford and Croydon.
* Tesco’s first television advertising campaign for 2013 will feature the dot-com grocery online service, as a mother daydreams about who is picking her order.
