Morrisons rolls out Amazon Prime groceries in London

Morrisons has launched its new online service with Amazon in parts of London and Hertfordshire as part of an ongoing ramp up of its online ambition.

The Morrisons at Amazon service, which was announced in February, will allow customers of Amazon Prime to shop online at Morrisons, with order picked in local stores and delivered on the same day by the online giant. The services offers one-hour deliveries for £6.99, or free two-hour slots.

It initiative is set to broaden the wholesale supply to Amazon customers that it launched in June, it said, a “capital-light” investment which has been extended to “thousands” of Morrisons products. It added that the move is likely to contribute to the £50m-£100m incremental profit opportunity outlined in the Bradford-based retailer 2015/16 preliminary results, it added. 

Chief executive David Potts said being a manufacturer and shopkeeper gave it unique skills to help build a broader new Morrisons through capital light growth. “Morrisons at Amazon’ is another exciting joint opportunity and makes Morrisons good quality, great value-for-money products available to even more customers,” he said. 

Morrisons’s third quarter results highlighted its fourth consecutive rise in like-for-like sales, despite total sales falling during the period. The latest Kantar results, released this week, showed sales down 2.4%, although there was growth in its premium own-label lines.

However the retailer noted at a recent tasting its the BWS share within total Morrisons grocery grew year-on-year from 12.7% to 13.6%, in the year to 3 January 2016 (Kantar Worldpanel), with wine sales growing 1.9% against a wider 1.1% decline for total Multiple Grocers in the 12 weeks to February 2016, according to Nielsen.

Meanwhile, Amazon has launched a trial one-hour wine delivery service with London independent wine merchant, Spirited Wines.