Jason Jeffries
16 February 2011
The company behind the Morrisons supermarket chain recently announced it had purchased online children's retailer Kiddicare, as part of what it described as a more general move into ecommerce.
Morrisons boss Dalton Philips said the acquisition would benefit the supermarket chain in more than one way.
"This acquisition brings not only a respected, successful and fast growing specialist retailer into the Morrisons group, but also a robust, scalable and highly advanced technology platform around which we can begin to build our ecommerce offer," he said.
Kiddicare also operates a 160,000 square-foot nursery equipment retail store in Peterborough, containing retail space, storage and offices. Morrisons said the facility is the largest of its kind in Europe.
The lessons about payment gateways, online security, and other important aspects of ecommerce operations will help Morrisons launch further offerings by 2012, the company stated.
Adding an ecommerce element to a brick-and-mortar store can seem like a thankless task, but once payment service providers and other requirements are sorted out, the profits can be considerable, according to industry analysts.
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