About 100 Axfood AB employees have joined in an e-commerce pilot project where they will order groceries online from Hemköp’s Torsplan store in Stockholm and then pick their purchases in grocery bags at the store or have them delivered directly to them at home.
“This is the first step of a pilot project,” comments Anders Strålman, president and CEO.
“During the autumn we will expand the trial to an additional two of our stores in Stockholm.”
In the next 10 years, the amount of money that people in Sweden spend on e-commerce will increase dramatically, from SEK 54 billion (US$6.43 billion) to about SEK 300 billion, according to a new report published by HUI Research.
The food retail sector will account for a large part of this growth, as interest in having groceries delivered home is growing rapidly, mainly among consumers – mostly in big cities – who are short on time.
“We are seeing growing interest in e-commerce among all of our customers,” says Strålman, who views digital business as a vital complement to traditional store sales in the future.
Shopping for groceries online has had annual growth of around 40%, but from very low levels in terms of total volume for the food retail sector.
There are also a number of challenges, such as in logistics and how to handle refrigerated and frozen products.
“We see exciting opportunities in this growth, in combination with the current digital trend. Within the next five years, digital sales of groceries will likely account for a significantly larger share,” says Strålman.
Presently, Axfood conducts business-to-business e-commerce sales via Axfood Närlivs and Axfood Snabbgross to customers.
They also supply groceries to the home delivery companies Linas Matkasse and Middagsfrid.
