January 2010

This time last year my co-founder Tim wrote that we had “made more improvements to our service in 2008 than in any other year”. Well, he was right, but I think we've done even more this past year!

We've increased our range by a third to over 21,000 products, including stamps, more toys, and even a new meat and fish service counter (opening to all customers very soon). We’ve introduced Ocado Reserved, a pioneering service that lets you pre-book a regular delivery time every week. We’ve also launched an award-winning iPhone app which most people seem to think is pretty cool. And, perhaps most important of all, we’ve pushed our carbon footprint down to the point where shopping with us is now greener than walking to your local supermarket!

So what's coming up next year? We thought we'd share our New Year's resolutions with you. Our first is to be even better at the basics: getting you what you ordered on time and in full. We’re also working hard on a new and improved website, and on increasing our range yet further with lots of exciting new speciality food and drink. Our commitment to the environment will continue too: we’ll be trialling electric vans and, following on from our involvement in the launch of 10:10, getting stuck into more initiatives and events to encourage others to cut their carbon emissions too.

But our most important New Year's resolution is to do with our people. We've got an amazing team here at Ocado, who pick and pack your groceries; deliver them to your kitchen come rain or shine (or snow!), and do all of the other things that are needed to give you the Ocado service that you know and love. We want to celebrate those people and what they do.

We had a pretty difficult week last week - it snowed at just about the worst time of year for us. Suppliers were stuck, some of our people couldn't even get to work, and we had the biggest and most important orders of the year to deliver. Rather than tell the story again, I'm going to quote some excerpts from an email that Tim sent to our staff last week when we were delivering in the snow, because I think it explains what we’re all about.

"I arrived in the Customer Service Office at 2am. The office that should have been closed was a hive of activity. Over the next hour, I met with several amazing Customer Service Team Members whose commitment to our customers humbled me. I heard stories of barrowing orders up and down hills where the vans couldn't be moved. One CSTM, after his route had taken three hours longer than planned, had headed back to make a delivery over an hour away and arrived to a delighted customer and delivered her Christmas order into her kitchen at 2.15am!

Over the last seven days (before Christmas) we've delivered 98.7% of our orders on the day intended and called to offer the rest where we just couldn't make it a real pre-Christmas alternative. Our fulfilment standards have been very high. It’s cost us some money versus where we would have expected to be but we will make that back quickly - reputations are gained harder and lost easier, but because of your hard work and commitment our reputation is still one of offering our customers the best service in the country.

In this era of higher taxes, bigger governments, worsening public services, closures, bankruptcies, strikes and public debate about peoples' and industries' worth you can all be proud in the knowledge that we serve a purpose, that we make our customers’ lives better and that we do it better than our competitors. This week we've shown what the biggest difference between us and our competitors is - the Ocado team. Our resilience and commitment to our business and our customers is amazing, it makes me so proud and should you too. Together we can continue to build Ocado into one of Britain's world class businesses."

We've been doing this for ten years now. And the bigger we get, the more important each and every member of our team becomes. When we started it was just three of us in a room – now there are several thousand people working to help change the way people shop. They're all crucial to what we do. And in 2010 we want everyone to know that.

Jason,

Ocado Co-Founder