Morrisons online snub increasingly questionable
Morrisons has stood alone among the major grocers in continuing to shun the selling of groceries online.
By Glynn Davis, City Editor
Its marketing director Michael Bates this week suggested that it still had no plans to go down this route as the model had still not proven itself to be profitable. We all know Ocado does not yet make a real profit but how about Asda and online leader Tesco. Judging by Tesco’s accounts we are led to believe that it does make a profit. The grocer was a little opaque in the early days in how it attributed operating costs to its online division but I think it is fair to say that its numbers now appear relatively transparent. And I find it hard to believe that Tesco would still be growing its online operation if it didn’t contribute to the bottom line after all these years. Morrisons might be doing well at the moment but this continued questioning of the value of online retailing looks increasingly short-sighted and plain wrong.
Author: glynnd@theretailbulletin.com
