Asda is to allow customers to collect orders from other retailers within its 614 stores as it looks to tap into online retailers' growing desire to have a physical footprint at UK locations. The grocery giant is describing the initiative, called ToYou, as a game changer. Missguided is the first company to sign up to the new service. According to Asda, if it grows the solution enough it could provide the supermarket with up to 40 million extra visits per year by 2019.

Ian Stansfield, vice president Asda Logistics Services and Supply Chain, says: “Demand for online shopping is ever increasing, with it grows the appetite from online retailers to have physical footprints their customers can access. Not only are we providing online retailers with a presence on the High Street we’re also bridging a gap for customers who want to collect or return their online orders while carrying out their weekly shop. This is an industry first: complete, real-time, individual parcel tracking – whether collect or return, every step of a parcels journey is tracked and visible to our clients and customers. This truly is game changing.”

In addition, the retailer has rolled out to every store a Click and Collect solution for George.com, which it says has already reduced customer wait times for collection by over 60 per cent; customers can place orders up to 9pm for next day collection and one million parcels have thus far passed through the system. Stephen Langford, senior director, George E-commerce, says: “George serves more customers online than most fashion retailers so for us this move was a bit of a no brainer, a slicker service, with more in depth data, which allows us to know what the optimum times of day we need to have colleagues ready to serve our customers. We can now see that customers ordering for the following day are collecting parcels between 5-7pm but if they miss their day one delivery slot, they’re coming to collect parcels between 8-10am the following day – this insight has helped us reduce waiting times by over 60 per cent. This is data not only helping improve george.com but we’re also able to provide it to our clients."

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