Tim Danaher is editor of Retail Week

The grocers have led the way when it comes to online retailing, with timed deliveries and great customer service that has put the non-food sector to shame.

The quid pro quo has always been that you’ve had to pay for deliveries. Until now. Waitrose’s decision this week to scrap the charges marks a ratcheting up of the increasingly intense battle for yummy mummies’ online shop, which has also seen Ocado slashing the prices of 4,000 Waitrose lines this week.

Free delivery is an eye-catching move and one that won’t make Waitrose any friends among the other grocers. The reason always given for delivery charges is that selling and delivering groceries online is a logistically complex and expensive business.

Even with the charges, it’s never been quite clear if anyone makes any money from it. But in a recession there is a big opportunity for it to grow, as shoppers like the discipline of choosing a shopping list at home and not being able to make impulse buys in-store.

selling and delivering groceries online is a logistically complex and expensive business

But free delivery won’t be simple. Most retailers operate dynamic pricing systems that go up for the best slots, say on Saturdays. Making all deliveries free will be likely to increase pressure on these slots hugely, and here lies the challenge for Waitrose.

Because while delivery charges are never going to be popular, they are seen by middle-class online shopping pioneers as a price worth paying for convenience and service. Get all these elements right and the potential is huge, but the service can’t be allowed to suffer.

While Rome burns…

High streets up and down the country are looking increasingly depressing as more stores close. So the Government is right to come up with plans to make sure they remain vibrant places.

But the way to do that isn’t to fill vacant shops with drop-in centres and art installations that do nothing to generate economic activity, as Communities Secretary Hazel Blears proposed this week.

If the Government is able to help do-gooders with the costs of occupying shops, why can’t it help retailers do the same, perhaps with a more significant gesture on business rates than the token effort announced last month?

This idea typifies the Government’s woolly thinking when it comes to retail. While Rome is burning, it is fiddling around the edges.

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