Sainsbury’s will open a new fulfilment centre in London this autumn to cope with growing online shopping demand.
The 185,000ft² facility in Bromley-By-Bow should create 900 new jobs, with recruitment already underway for the first 470 of these. The supermarket said it hopes to have recruited the remaining 430 by 2020.
Sainsbury’s director of online Robbie Feather said demand for multichannel shopping was growing in London, in particular, and that he expected that trend to continue.
He said: “Our online orders are currently picked from supermarket stores across the UK and this model will continue, but the Bromley-by-Bow Centre will help us keep pace with demand in London, enabling us to fulfil another 25,000 orders per week.”
New mayor of London Sadiq Khan welcomed the news of the fulfilment centre and the jobs it will create.
He said: “It is fantastic news that Sainsbury is creating 900 new jobs for Londoners. This investment is further evidence that London is open and the best city in the world in which to do business.”
Last week Sainsbury’s began trialling a same day delivery service in its Richmond, Streatham Common and Brookwood stores, in what Feather described the move as “a natural next step in delivering our strategy to help customers shop whenever and wherever they want”.
Customers who order their shopping before 12pm can collect or have their order delivered after 4pm or 6pm, respectively.
The move was a response to the launch of Amazon Fresh in the city last month, which also offers same day delivery on chilled and ambient groceries.
The supermarket said it hopes to have rolled the trial out to 30 stores by Christmas.
