Co-op unlikely to extend taxi delivery service trial

Manchester-based retailer The Co-op is unlikely to extend a trial which saw taxis being used to deliver groceries to customers.

The three month experiment centred on three stores: Lancing in West Sussex, Ashley Down, in Bristol, and Royton in Manchester.

Currently, the Co-op provides home delivery from 228 branches, but only for purchases made in-store.

Home delivery is free within certain postcodes for customers spending more than £25, or for £3 if they spend less.

These items are delivered by Co-op vans.

But the recent trial involved taxis being hired to make deliveries to customers.

Industry commentators believe that this could be extended to deliver groceries using private hire cabs and courier fleets for items bought on the internet.

The group has recently employed senior e-commerce experts from other supermarket groups, including Chris Conway, previously senior director of grocery e-commerce with Asda and Morrisons’ head of online, and George Hayworth, former Asda e-commerce operations manager and Morrisons’ online digital operations manager.

Lisa Byfield-Green, senior analyst at LZ Retailytics, believes the trial could be linked to “future e-commerce ambitions” for the Co-op.

It could be aimed at cutting the costs of its existing delivery systems, and, with a “network of reliable logistics partners it could potentially also scale this initiative to include online ordering,” she said.

A staff member at Lancing was quoted as saying: “It’s a new process. We used to do it with our own vans but we’ve been trialing it with the taxis. It seems to be going quite well.”

However, a Co-op spokesman said there are no plans currently in place to extend the trial.