Morrisons van with Dalton Philips

Dalton Philips has revealed details of Morrisons’ new online service

Morrisons is set to make its first online delivery on 10 January from the Dordon warehouse it now shares with Ocado, as CEO Dalton Philips promised a fresh-focused offer that “will be quite an entrance” to online grocery.

The boss of the last big-four UK supermarket to go online said today it would have a proposition that is “really strong, not ‘me too’ designed simply to catch up with rivals”. Philips will deliver the first order personally.

Fresh will be a key pillar of the new offer. It will allow shoppers to buy meat cut to order – they will be able to specify the part of the animal they want and the thickness of the meat. Fresh produce will come with a five-rosette quality rating to give customers a better understanding of the freshness and the taste of the produce they put into their online basket.

“By 2015, we will be a very different business competing on an equal basis with our competitors for the first time in decade”

Dalton Philips

Morrisons will also be training drivers – or customer service team members as they are being called – to offer a doorstep-checking service on fresh produce. If a shopper is not satisfied, the product will be deducted from the bill before payment takes place, and the shopper will also receive a voucher for the value of the removed item the following day.

Another key element of the offer, Morrisons claimed, was to reduce complication. It has developed a three-tier delivery charging format: off-peak deliveries will cost £1, standard delivery slots £3, and peak-time delivery slots such as evenings, £5.

All deliveries will be made within one-hour windows and customers will receive a text message telling them when it will arrive, as well as the name of the driver and the registration number of the vehicle.

Lessons from Fresh Direct

When Morrisons announced in May that it was going to tie-up with Ocado for its online debut, many experts suggested this was evidence that it had not learned much from the 10% equity stake it bought in New York-based online retailer Fresh Direct.

However, this week Morrisons online food managing director Simon Thompson, who was embedded in the US retailer, said this was not the case and that many lessons had been taken on board. Its quality rating for fresh produce - giving a five rosette rating for produce - comes straight from Fresh Direct. Produce will be marked as either never better, great, good, average or below average.

As Morrisons is in effect sharing its online ordering platform with Ocado, it will use some of the features currently exclusive to the online specialist – such as registering through Facebook and the ability to import a favourites list from any of the other major retailers via mySupermarket.com.

After launching in Warwickshire, Morrisons will roll out the service to West Yorkshire in February, followed by London and South Yorkshire next summer and the North West of England by the end of the year. This, it said, would give it access to 13 million homes.

“By 2015, we will be a very different business competing on an equal basis with our competitors for the first time in decade,” said Philips.