Ocado – statistics & facts
Ocado is an online grocery pure player that ranks among the leading food and beverage online stores in the United Kingdom, competing with long-established supermarket chains like Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda. As of 2023, Ocado employed nearly 19,000 people and processed close to 400,000 orders per week. The online supermarket is owned jointly by Ocado Group and Marks & Spencer.
From that perspective, the crisis could potentially provide an opportunity for the company to further increase its consumer reach, as more and more people in the UK report switching supermarkets in favor of cheaper alternatives due to inflation.
A trailblazer in online grocery
At the turn of the century, Ocado was one of the early movers in an online grocery industry still in its infancy stage. Over the years, the company grew tremendously, beyond the capacity of its very first fulfillment center in Hatfield, England. Looking at the past decade only, Ocado’s revenues grew almost fivefold, surging from approximately 600 million British pounds in 2011 to more than 2.8 billion pounds in 2023. As e-commerce gained increasing relevance over the years, Ocado secured a joint venture deal with Marks & Spencer in February 2019, whereby the renowned British retailer would pay 750 million pounds in exchange for a 50 percent stake in Ocado.com, the retail arm of Ocado Group’s burgeoning grocery technology business. In turn, M&S food offerings would go online for the very first time. With the coronavirus outbreak spurring demand for online shopping, Ocado’s market capitalization peaked at an unprecedented 23.34 billion U.S. dollars in 2020. However, since then, most e-commerce markets have witnessed post-pandemic comedowns. As of April 2024, Ocado’s market cap fell to 3.7 billion dollars.Resilience in the face of hardship
The cost-of-living crisis presented a challenge for online retailers and brick-and-mortar supermarkets alike. In 2023, Ocado saw its average basket value decrease from a high of 137 British pounds in 2020 to around 121 pounds, as consumers sought to make economies in the face of rising prices. Ocado’s net losses ballooned to nearly 500 million British pounds in 2022, more than double company’s losses in the previous year. However, the following year, the company reported decreasing the size of its net loss, down to 387 million pounds in 2023. Despite a challenging year on the macroeconomic level, Ocado still managed to expand its customer base to hit the one-million-mark for the first time in 2023, demonstrating resilience in the face of hardship.From that perspective, the crisis could potentially provide an opportunity for the company to further increase its consumer reach, as more and more people in the UK report switching supermarkets in favor of cheaper alternatives due to inflation.
