By Andy McCue, 1 April 2005 13:05
NEWS Struggling frozen food supermarket chain Iceland is to close its loss-making online and telephone home shopping service later this month.
Iceland launched the service back in 1999 but it has failed to emulate the success and profits of similar online offerings by rivals such as Tesco.
As a result the store's CEO Malcolm Walker has decided to pull the plug on the service and to focus resources on its core in-store business as he battles to turn Iceland's financial performance around.
The web and phone shopping service will close from 23 April and is expected to lead to the loss of around 100 jobs at Iceland's North Wales head office in Deeside.
Walker said in a statement: "It is a loss-making operation and one in which we simply cannot justify further investment of either money or management time. Our core business is also performing badly and the focus of the new senior management team must clearly be on turning that round."
Iceland will, however, continue to offer free home delivery for goods bought in-store and Walker said the closure of the internet service will free up more delivery slots.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. EDWARD TILLEY
SURELY IN THESE DAYS OF INCREASING INTERNET SHOPPING AND THE NEXT GENERATION OF COMPUTER WISE ELDERLY PEOPLE( THE SORT OF PEOPLE WHO WILL NEED THIS SERVICE) IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BEST BUSINESS PRACTICE TO HAVE MADE IT VIABLE,EITHER BY INCREASED EFFICIENCY OR HIGHER CHARGES SUCH AS TESCO'S £4 FOR DELIVERY.
2. CAROL VICKERS
i USE iCELAND ONLINE AS I AM DISABLED, i WOULD HAVE GLADLY PAID A DELIVERY CHARGE OF SAY £5 BUT WAS NOT GIVEN THE CHANCE. ICELAND WILL CERTAINLY BE LOSING ME AS A CUSTOMER. I UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE LOSSES BUT IF WE ALL PAID A SET DELIVERY CHARGE, COULD ICELAND NOT HAVE JUSTIFIED THE SERVICE?
3. Dan
Twice I wanted to use Iceland's online service early last year and again this year). However, both times the site needed Internet Explorer and wouldn't work in Firefox (the browser I use).
I emailed them and was told both times it is "something they are looking into". Well, I'm not bothered - I'll simply buy my frozen foods elsewhere.
Maybe a more accessible website would help, maybe not. All I know is, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one...
4. Andre Jay
I've been in the IT market for 25 years and it never amazes me when commercial entities 'can' technology because of the cost and use phrases such as 'core business' when the reality is the management and executives driving the 'web presence' couldn't broadband themselves out of a paper bag... where have all the people gone that know what they are doing.. Instead we are left with the 'would be', 'might do' and the mediocre
5. anonymous
Seems daft if they deliver anyway. I never tried their online service, I would have if I'd known it was free!
Either their marketing department or their website deparment must be very inefficient.
Can't beat them in 2 for 1 frozen pizzas though!