Years after Tesco and Asda ushered in the service, Sainsbury's is offering online grocery shoppers the option of picking up orders at stores. The service went live yesterday at its Water Lane store in Farnham, Surrey, with 18 more following suit in the next two weeks. 100 are in the pipeline to deliver the offering by the end of the year.

Customers can choose a free slot (minimum spend of £20) to pick up their shopping from a refrigerated van which will be parked in a designated area in the store’s car park, manned by a Sainsbury’s colleague. Slots will be available from Monday to Saturday from 8am to 1pm and then 2pm until 8pm in the evening. Sainsbury’s online director, Robbie Feather, says: "This is yet another step for our increasingly popular online service, and a demonstration of our commitment to giving our customers more convenient ways to shop with us, wherever and whenever they want. We’ll have 20 locations live by the end of March and will quickly roll-out our service from there, incorporating feedback from our customers and colleagues as we go."

Tesco and Asda launched Click and Collect services in 2010 and 2011 respectively. The former currently offers it at more than 300 of its 2,650 stores while Asda has rolled it out across all its 592 stores.

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