At odds to traditional grocers, technology forms the core of this innovators business strategy; creating a unique, patented end-to-end operating solution for online grocery retail based on proprietary technology and intellectual property.
The group – which delivers food for Waitrose and Morrisons, as well as own-band goods - is planning to fork out £210m over the year ahead as it looks to broaden itself from a UK online delivery grocery service, into a technology provider what offers warehouse capability and digital platforms to other retailers worldwide.
The future looks bright:
Long term structural trends within the grocery industry seeing shorter, more efficient supply chains, online shopping and rapid delivery becoming increasingly popular, offer positive long term outlooks for the innovative retailer.
Ocado chief executive Tim Steiner said: “Now is the time to take advantage of our growth opportunities. We will invest to ramp up our new solution in both Erith and Andover and to have the right resources in place to meet growing demand for the Ocado Solutions offer.
We believe that taking advantages of these international opportunities now will make our virtuous cycle turn faster in the years ahead.”
Earlier in the year Ocado announced a partnership with French supermarket giant Groupe Casino, and has recently made its first venture into North America after reaching a deal with Canadian retailer Sobeys.
In its full year results, although Ocado fell into the red on a bottom-line basis, retail earnings lifted 4.5% to 79.2m, and orders rose 14.3% to an average of 263,000 orders per week. Average basket value dropped slightly to £107.2 as new trends of shopping via mobile and using its Ocado Smart Pass saw customers order fewer good but more often.