Tesco continues to shine online

NEWS Tesco said today it expects its dot-com division to hit full profitability by the end of the financial year, following profit from its online food sector last year. The retail group posted a 12.2 per cent growth in third quarter sales, boosted by growth in all divisions of its business. According to recent figures from Jupiter MMXI, Tesco was the third most popular UK e-tail site in October, with 1,190,000 unique visitors during the month. But while Tesco soars ahead, Safeway has announced it is to close its UK online shopping service despite posting a nine per cent rise in pre-tax profit last week. Earlier this year Tesco.com ploughed £15.7m into Safeway's US internet shopping venture, GroceryWorks.