Other people are building these large distribution centres, which is a massive capital investment. It will open us up to people who aren't our standard customer base. The service underwent a six month pilot before going live on October 4th. The trial began in February in conjunction with British Telecom, with 500 BT employees registered to use the Web site. The procedure for buying from the Web site follows a by-now fairly standard model.
Customers register on the site before placing their order using a credit card or debit card.
Once the order is placed, they are able to select a delivery date and time - next day delivery is guaranteed if the order is placed before 1 pm. Once a day, the information on the server is downloaded automatically and, based on the customer's postcode, distributed to individual stores for packing and despatch. Customers are able to save their shopping lists so they can have the same order each week. The site also contains special offers and promotions. The site itself is hosted on a Sun Solaris machine and uses an Oracle database.