Iceland trials free next-day deliveries

RETAILER Iceland Foods is trialling an enhanced online shopping service which allows customers to place orders up to 10pm for free delivery the next day, subject to a minimum order value of £25.

The trial is currently taking place at a small number of selected Iceland stores in the North West, North East, London and the South West, with very encouraging initial results.

The service will be extended further over the coming months. It builds on the Deeside firm’s established  free home delivery service for customer purchases in store of £25 and over, which is already making over 180,000 deliveries each week.

The launch of the online service has been supported by a £250,000 investment to create a new centre of excellence at head office, where training will be provided to home delivery drivers, in-store pickers and store managers.

Iceland has also signed a five-year deal with Mercedes-Benz Road Range to replace its entire current home delivery fleet of 1,300 vehicles with state-of-the-art Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans, with more than 300 new vans being delivered this year.

Iceland director of delivered sales John Mackie said: “We are delighted with the positive initial response to the local trials of our online service. This is exceeding our expectations for the number and size of orders we have received, and for the proportion of new customers to Iceland that the service is attracting.

“The launch of our new Iceland driver academy programme at our centre of excellence in Deeside will help to ensure that all our home delivery drivers are ambassadors for the service on our customers’ doorsteps.”