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By Sarah Left, 10 September 1998 00:10

NEWS Frozen food chain Iceland is giving Internet shopping the cold shoulder, at least for the present. The UK retailer said it has no plans to make a Web-based service part of its home shopping strategy. Iceland's home shopping service lets customers phone or fax orders to a call centre in Deeside, North Wales. Call centre staff then add £4 to the bill and pass on the orders to neighbourhood stores, who deliver the items. According to John Sharman, home shopping business development manager for Iceland, the scheme has been very successful. But he remains unconvinced about the immediate value of ebusiness for his company. "Four per cent of households have an Internet connection, but 99 per cent have access to a phone. You don't have to be an accountant to work out where the money is," he said. "The standard profile of an Internet user is young, male and upper income. We want a broader appeal. We're not ignoring that segment of the market, but they also have telephones." Supermarket rival Waitrose offers an Internet shopping service, but targets only customers with corporate accounts over an intranet. The only two companies they would confirm as active customers are ICL (which helped create the service) and British Airways. Tesco also offers Internet shopping, for a £5 delivery charge, but it covers only limited delivery areas - mainly around London.