Online Grocery Business

International Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce, 1(2), 57-78, April-June 2005 57 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033-1240, USA Tel: [phone]; Fax [phone]; URL-http://www.idea-group.com

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Building an Online Grocery Business:
The Case of asda.com
Irene Yousept, University of Newcastle upon Tyne Business School, UK Feng Li, University of Newcastle upon Tyne Business School, UK

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This paper uses the case of ASDA.com, ASDA’s home-shopping arm, to demonstrate the challenges in building and developing an online grocery business in the UK. To set the stage, the initial implementation and learning from phone/catalogue home-shopping in ASDA is outlined to demonstrate why e-commerce was seen as most economically suitable to conduct a grocery home-shopping business. Then the paper illustrates the development stages and critical aspects of ASDA.com’s Web shop. Particularly, it delineates the operational aspects of B2C e-commerce in the grocery business: fulfillment center and fulfillment process. The case will also describe ASDA’s efforts in overcoming problems with their home-shopping fulfillment model and present important elements of ASDA.com’s virtual store and its operation. The paper concludes with the challenges that ASDA.com has been facing, their current status, and future prospects. Keywords: B2C e-commerce; digital economy; distribution channels; e-business; e-commerce expansion; e-commerce implementation;e-commerce needs; e-commerce planning; e-commerce problems; e-grocery market; e-operation; e-retailing; e-tailing; electronic business; electronic retailing; electronic shopping; information economy; Internet commerce; Internet economy; online grocery shopping; online shopping; service industry; virtual shopping; Web shopping; Web site design; Web-based commerece

ORGANIZATION BACKGROUND
ASDA Stores Ltd. (http://www.asda.co.uk) was Britain’s second largest supermarket

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Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. 78 International Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce, 1(2), 57-78, April-June 2005 Yrjola, H. (2001). Physical distribution consideratios for electronic home shopping. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics, 31(10), 746-761. Zairi, M. (1998). Best practice in supply chain management: The experience of the retail sector. European Journal of Innovation Management, 1(2), 58-66. Irene Yousept is currently a full-time PhD researcher at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne Business School, UK, funded by the Overseas Research Scholarship. She holds a BEng (Honors) with cum laude in industrial engineering from the University of Trisakti, Indonesia, and an MSc with distinction in business IT systems from the University of Strathclyde, UK. She was a teaching assistant for e-business module. Her research interests include emerging business models and strategies in the information economy, particularly in retail banking and supermarkets. Miss Yousept has worked closely with UK leading companies in banking and retailing. She has been a reviewer for a number of journals and conferences. Her recent work in Internet banking has won the best paper prize in e-business and technology management in British Academy of Management (BAM) Conference. Feng Li is chair of e-business at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne Business School, UK. His research has focused on the interactions between information systems and emerging strategies, business models, and organizational designs. He is the author of two books and numerous journal articles, and he speaks regularly at international conferences and to business executives from both the private and public sectors. Professor Li is a member of several programs on ICTs, e-commerce/e-business, supply chain/value chain, and virtual teams. He has worked closely with companies in banking, telecommunications, manufacturing, retailing, electronics as well as the public sectors. He is the e-business SIG chair in British Academy of Management (BAM). His recent works on Internet banking and on telecommunications pricing models and value networks have been extensively reported by the media. Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.