• Waitrose launches specialist kitchen website
  • It will sell 3,000 products for home delivery or click-and-collect
  • Upmarket grocer bids to grow its kitchen market share six-fold within five years

 

Waitrose has launched a new website dedicated to kitchen products as the supermarket chain bids to muscle its way in to the growing market.

The upmarket grocer has dubbed the new Waitrosekitchen.com website as a “one-stop online shop” for everything customers need to prepare and cook food at home.

The transactional website will offer shoppers a wider range of own-label and branded goods to purchase online, with more than 3,000 products including cookware, utensils, blenders and cookbooks available to order for home delivery or through click-and-collect.

If customers order by 9pm, they will be able to collect their items the next day from their nearest Waitrose branch.

Waitrose said the move is the latest step in its “multichannel evolution” and is geared at increasing its share of the kitchen market. It already operates specialist florist, wine, garden and pet websites.

Plan to increase share

According to figures from Conlumino, the sector is worth more than £4.5bn in the UK. Online sales of kitchen products are expected to hit the £1bn mark by 2018.

Waitrose aims to increase its share in the growing market six-fold within the next five years.

The grocer’s head of ecommerce Robert McCarthy said: “We already offer our customers the ingredients, ideas and expertise and so Waitrosekitchen.com is a natural evolution for Waitrose and a real step forward in our multichannel strategy.

“The essence of the site is to bring together our customers love of food and cooking with all the equipment they need. The website will give them access to exciting products, competitive prices and ultimate convenience.”

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