Iceland says no to Web shopping

Frozen food chain Iceland has put Internet shopping on ice, in favour of a telephone ordering service.

The company told ?VNU Newswire? that it has no plans to introduce an Web shopping service in the near future.

Iceland?s home shopping service, which goes live to 95 per cent of the UK population in mid October, enables customers to phone or fax orders to its headquarters in north Wales. The orders are passed onto local stores for home delivery. Around #4 is added to each bill for the service.

?Ninety nine per cent of the population have access to a telephone, but only four per cent of homes are connected to the Internet, so you don?t have to be a mathematical genius to work out where the real business,? John Sharman, home shopping business development manager for Iceland told ?VNU Newswire?. ?Aside from lack of user penetration, the average order takes around 20 minutes to complete on the Internet because sites are complex and slow, the telephone takes around five minutes,? he said.

Sharman also feels that the current Internet user profile - young, male, good income - does not have a broad enough appeal for Internet shopping services. ?We are not writing off the Internet, we just don?t think it is right yet,? said Sharman. ?We are continually looking at new technology opportunities, including digital TV.?

Rival supermarket chains have been toying with online shopping. Tesco?s has a limited service within the London area and Waitrose offers an office delivery service over the Internet to employees from ICL and British Airways.