Ocado is widening the reach of its same-day delivery offering, the online retailer’s “fastest delivery service”.
The online retailer told The Grocer it was “working hard to expand the number of same-day slots available across as many UK locations as possible”.
availability
Same-day slots can be booked until 2pm, but are currently “limited to certain postcodes” in availability, Ocado said. Customers can check availability when booking a delivery slot.
The speedy delivery offering is separate to Ocado’s on-demand, rapid delivery service Zoom, which offers a range of around 9,000 SKUs for delivery in less than an hour from dedicated warehouses across London.
Standard hour-long slots for the new same-day deliveries vary in price from £6.50 to £7.50, with cheaper options for flexible four-hour slots. Same-day slots are “currently free” for Smart Pass holding customers, who pay monthly for free deliveries.
The online supermarket’s standard minimum spend of £40 applies to the same-day deliveries.
Ocado first offered same-day delivery in 2024 via ‘Express It’ slots – “Yep, same-day deliveries are now a thing” it told customers at the time – in a handful of postcodes. At launch, shoppers had until 11am to book a delivery for after 4pm the same day. They are now able to book slots much later in the day.
Rival supermarkets have been ramping up the availability and speed of same-day slots. In January, Tesco bought forward the time of the earliest slots available for same-day delivery. Shoppers booking a slot (from around 400 larger stores) before 8.45am can now select home delivery slots from 1pm. Previously, the soonest same-day home delivery slot was 7pm. Tesco described it as a “market-leading move for a UK supermarket”.
Iceland has same-day delivery options for around £6. Sainsbury’s allows for orders made before midday to arrive from 5pm for a variable fee if over £40 (and £9 otherwise). Asda’s same-day option has fees starting from £8.50.
On Amazon, same-day delivery is available on “millions” of eligible products that are dispatched directly. It costs £5.99 or is free if a customer is an Amazon Prime member and they are ordering more than £20 worth of goods. It only covers selected postcodes. The company is “introducing perishable groceries alongside millions of everyday essentials and other products on Amazon.co.uk with same-day delivery” this year, it has said.
In February, China’s largest retailer by revenue JD.com launched its express delivery service – Joy Express – in the UK, to service its full category e-commerce service Joybuy.
Joybuy launched last month with a standard ‘Double 11’ delivery offering, meaning orders made by 11am will arrive at customers’ doorsteps before 11pm. Those made before 11pm will arrive the next day.
Of the 55 non-grocery retailers in March’s Digital Capability Index (DCI) by Retail Week and The Grocer only five offered same-day delivery, the majority at best within “one to two days”.
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