Asda named Online Supermarket of the Year at the Grocer Gold Awards 2020

Asda has claimed the title of ‘Online Supermarket of the Year’ at the 2020 Grocer Gold Awards for its ability to innovate and grow capacity within its home shopping operation.

The supermarket beat pure play retailer Ocado to claim the win, with online sales growth consistently outperforming the market in 2020 following a strong performance in 2019 that saw growth of 10% - the fastest of the big four.

The rapid rise of online grocery has been a key focus for supermarkets in 2020, seeing Asda increase the number of delivery slots available from 450,000 per week to more than 750,000 in response to the pandemic.

Innovation to drive operational excellence and efficiencies were also cited by The Grocer as reasons for the win, after the supermarket made improvements to change the picking process for customer orders, resulting in a 26% uplift in the pick rate.

Asda enables customers to opt-in to ‘beta testing’, giving the retailer the opportunity to test new developments in a live environment and gain feedback directly from customers before considering a wider roll out.

According to Kantar data*, Asda’s online grocery market share vs the big four was 18.7% for the 12 weeks to 1st November 2020, up from pre-pandemic levels.

Earlier this year it also added Same Day Delivery and Express Collection options to its offer, allowing customers to order online and receive groceries quickly and conveniently, as well as extending its partnership with Uber Eats to 100 stores.

Simon Gregg, Vice President of Online Grocery at Asda, said: “I’m delighted we have been named Online Supermarket of the Year by The Grocer for 2020.

“We continually listen to customers to understand what is most important to them before making improvements to our service. This, coupled with our agile approach to innovation, means we have been able to drive change at pace across home shopping.

“This year has been a year like no other and it’s thanks to the agility and resilience shown by all of our colleagues in our home office and stores that we have been able to meet the demands and challenges this year has brought. Their dedication has enabled us to continue to innovate and grow capacity while ensuring we offer a best-in-class sustainable operation.”

*[Source: Kantar, FMCG Panel, Share of Grocery sales]