Tesco.com rings up profit

Tesco.com - the online grocery division of the giant supermarket chain - is now profitable.

Announcing its prelims for the year to February 23 Tesco said it achieved sales of £356 million, up more than 50 per cent on last year.

In the UK Tesco's home shopping business covers 95 per cent of the population and handles 85,000 orders a week.

Yesterday, The Grocer published its latest survey into online shopping and found that buying groceries online is still hit and miss.

Researchers described buying groceries from Asda's Web site as "a nightmare" with the site crashing several times before allowing access.

Sainsbury's service was slick until it was found that the delivery driver had the wrong order and had to rearrange a new date to drop off the goods.

All in all The Grocer said that online shopping was still "fraught with difficulties".

Tesco and Waitrose both gave the most satisfactory service but were let down by their delivery. ®