Ocado and M&S joint venture builds on online shopping momentum with 52% growth

The joint venture between Ocado and M&S has grown by more than half as demand for online groceries continues to increase.

Ocado Retail has made retail revenues of £587.3m in the 13 weeks ending August 30 - a 52 per cent year-on-year increase compared with the same period in 2019.

The firm has also seen a rise in order numbers of 9.6 per cent - a levelling out from peaks earlier in the year - which the firm attributes to the normalisation of online shopping patterns.

The news follows the company’s switchover on September 1 to offer M&S products on Ocado.com.

Melanie Smith, Ocado Retail’s chief executive officer, explained: “These are transformational times for Ocado Retail with M&S products now exclusively available online at Ocado.com. The successful switchover means that M&S products are available to buy in a weekly shop side by side with branded products for the first time.

“As a result, we can now offer customers more choice and better value than ever before, wider ranges than any traditional retailer, and thousands of products that are only available online through Ocado.com.

Melanie continued: “We believe that our proposition is the lowest carbon footprint way to shop in terms of emissions and food waste, with increased hygiene meaning less handling of product in our fulfilment and delivery.

“Our aim is to continue to set the bar as we begin again to welcome new customers who are seeing the benefits of online shopping in ever greater numbers and we remain focused and on track to increase capacity by 40 per cent through to 2021.”

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