WAITROSE is to add an extra 5,000 “rapid” delivery slots each week so customers can order groceries and receive them in two hours or less.
The retailer said it planned to more than triple its capacity for the speedy service, increasing the number of available slots from 2,000 to 7,000 each week – almost half of which will be given to vulnerable people.
Waitrose said this will give 2.5million households the option to use the service to get food and essentials.
The service enables shoppers to have up to 25 grocery items delivered within two hours or less or on the same day.
So far it has been trialled from eight London shops, as well as in Hove, East Sussex.
From April 17 it will be available in the areas surrounding an additional 20 shops across London.
To check if the service delivers in their area, customers can enter their postcode on the Waitrose & Partners rapid website.
The selection of items available for rapid delivery is more limited than you would find in stores.
And you are only allowed to select two items from each category, for example, only two bread products and only two chilled dairy products.
The delivery cost for the service is £5 – so you will need to factor that in to your final bill.
By the end of next week, at least 40% of the new slots will be reserved exclusively for the elderly and vulnerable.
Waitrose will contact customers on the government's list of vulnerable people to inform them that they have priority access to rapid slots.
Where is the new Waitrose 'rapid' service available?
These are the stores where the new service is available – but you'll need to check your postcode to see if they will deliver to you.
- Barbican
- Belgravia
- Brent Cross
- Buckhurst Hill
- Canary Wharf
- Chiswick
- Clapham Junction
- Enfield
- Finchley Road
- Harrow Weald
- High Holborn
- Kings Cross
- Mill Hill
- Monument
- Putney
- Richmond
- South Bank Tower
- South Harrow
- Stratford
- Whetstone
On top of the delivery service, Waitrose has also announced that it will offer an extra 10,000 online grocery collection slots, taking the total number available each week to 30,000.
It is expanding its online collection service to a further 70 shops across the UK by the end of May.
Forty shops are expected to offer this by the end of April.
Customers can check if the service is available to them by typing in their postcode on the slot booking page at Waitrose.com.
At least a quarter of collection slots will be also reserved for the elderly and vulnerable.
Grocery collection has already launched in Waitrose shops in Kingston, Sevenoaks, Wimbledon, East Sheen, Westfield White City, Northwood and Bloomsbury with more being rolled out in the coming weeks.
Ben Stimson, director at Waitrose, said: “We are now making more online deliveries than Christmas week, every week, and have increased slots to reach 20 per cent more customers than usual.
“We know there is demand for more slots and we are doing all we can to give as many people as possible the opportunity to get the essentials they need – especially those who need them the most.”
Waitrose has also recruited hundreds of drivers and increased the number of man hours spent picking online orders by nearly 50 per cent, he added.
A number of supermarkets have recently introduced new delivery options, including Aldi, which yesterday announced it had launched a home delivery service for vulnerable and self-isolating customers.
M&S also now delivers a range of fruit and vegetable boxes.
And vulnerable Morrisons customers can now telephone the supermarket to order the groceries they need.
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