Asda is to give online grocery shoppers the option to collect orders from tube stations on the London Underground as it targets commuters.

In what it claims is a world first, the grocer will offer shoppers who order before noon the opportunity to collect their offer after 4pm after agreeing the deal with Transport for London (TfL). The service launches on Monday.

The first stations will be East Finchley, Harrow & Wealdstone, High Barnet, Highgate, Stanmore and Epping. The orders will be available to collect in the station car parks.  

The move comes just days after Asda set out its five-year strategic priorities which included a major push into the London and Southeast market.

Click-and-collect expansion is central to increasing physical access to Asda’s offer from 53% of the country today to 70% by 2018, with more than 1,000 new sites planned.

Asda retail director Mark Ibbotson said: “Customers in the Southeast tell us that they want the prices and quality provided by Asda value but they can’t access it easily. This tie-up with TfL solves that.

“We’ve led the way in click-and-collect by bringing Asda to where customers are rather than expecting them to come to us. From park-and-ride locations to business parks, now London Underground station car parks are another significant step on that journey.”

He added: “We believe customers will value the convenience of collecting shopping at their home tube station rather than carrying the products bought in premium convenience stores on their commute home.”

The move follows the launch of similar operations in Nottingham at a park-and-ride facility and at Green Park business park in Reading.

Asda said if the initial tube station tie-up is successful, it will be rolled out across London and the Southeast, where it is already working on other, unnamed collection initiatives.