London, November 27, 2001 (ResearchWire) – UK supermarket chain Safeway has abandoned its online food and drink site. The trial service allowed customers to order groceries over the Internet and collect them later from their nearest store.
While online sales of food and drinks are growing strongly, expected to reach $9.17 billion in the UK alone in 2005, rivals such as Tesco already have a strong foothold in the market. It would take a lot of effort to make the venture a success and, without the necessary level of commitment, Safeway might be right to focus purely on its core offline business.
Source: Datamonitor, 2001: “Exploiting eFMCG Opportunities”
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