Tesco ramps up online shopping plans

Tesco has stepped up its commitment to ecommerce and and is considering the possibility of launching instore cybercafes.

Customers throughout the country will soon be able to order groceries over the Web for a £5 fee and have them delivered to their doorstep. Tesco has already piloted the Internet shopping scheme in 22 stores and this week will add another 10.

Online shopping will be offered in a further five stores a week until the end of the company's financial year in February 2000.

Tesco said that the participating stores will initially be staffed to cope with 2,000 Internet orders, but that this will increase with demand.

A spokesman said: "Instead of giving each store the ability to deal with millions of orders we are equipping the stores with enough staff and vans to cope with 2,000. The likelihood is we will get a steady stream and as the flow increases so will the staff and vans."

Britain's largest supermarket group is also expected to launch a chain of cybercafes to encourage shoppers to spend more time instore. A spokesman said the company was "looking at the idea" but no firm details had been discussed yet.

Tesco announced in June that its free Internet service, TescoNet, is attracting 250,000 hits per week. The free Internet service now boasts 300,000 members.