Tesco Clubcard Plus Bank RGB

Source: Tesco

The supermarket is looking to counter the threat posed by Amazon’s free and faster delivery

Tesco has confirmed it is looking at introducing free deliveries for its Clubcard Plus members as it looks to counter the threat posed by Amazon and take advantage of the massive shift to online shopping.

The addition of free delivery to the top-tier loyalty scheme, which launched last November, comes with Tesco more than doubling its online capacity since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The supermarket remained tight-lipped on when the free delivery would launch or whether it would extend other benefits of the scheme, such as a 10% discount on two shops of up to £200 each, to online customers. Currently they apply to in-store shops only.

Tesco’s move comes after Amazon revealed plans earlier this month to ramp up its Amazon Fresh service, with free and faster delivery to its 15 million Prime members.

Amazon free grocery delivery: should UK grocers be worried?

CEO Dave Lewis told the Sunday Telegraph it planned to echo the suite of benefits offered by Amazon to its members.

“So an opportunity into the future for us is to think about how we put delivery into Clubcard Plus,” he said. “That’s always been the direction of travel.”

The latest move will increasingly see a two-tier system for Clubcard members and Tesco shoppers more generally, with The Grocer revealing last month it was ditching its peak and off-peak charges for online deliveries in favour of a flat-fee delivery charge of £4.50, or £5.50 for orders delivered from one of Tesco’s customer fulfilment centres.

The fee could encourage more uptake of Clubcard Plus, which costs members £7.99 a month and includes other benefits such as double data from Tesco mobile services and 10% discounts on selected Tesco brands, which has also so far been confined to in-store.

A Tesco spokeswoman said: “We’re always looking for new ways to better serve our customers.”