Sainsbury’s Grocery Deliveries Are Outstripping Christmas Period as Staycation Trend Heats Up This Summer

29 Aug 2016 --- As more people holiday in the UK online grocery orders have been sizzling at Sainsbury’s which has been tapping into the staycation trend by delivering to campsites, caravan parks and the more unusual holiday hotspots like yurts, castles and treehouses.

Many of the UK’s leading tourist spots such as Cornwall and Yorkshire, have been attracting hundreds of thousands of staycation holidaymakers this summer leading to a spike in Sainsbury’s online food and drinks orders. 

Supermarkets in some traditional vacation hotspots have risen 53 percent with some stores reporting they are busier than the Christmas period. 

Traditionally online orders at Sainsbury’s stores are the busiest over the festive period but 2016 has witnessed an unusual increase in the number of families choosing to remain in Britain for their annual holiday. 

Sainsbury’s has even increased staffing levels to cope with the hike in orders for a variety of products, with items like sausages and wine in high demand. 

On average orders at Sainsbury’s top ten stores in tourist areas have risen by 23 percent and the number of items ordered has increased by 34 percent. The Truro store, a popular coastal city in Cornwall, has seen the biggest increase of orders at 53 percent. 

“Our online delivery colleagues visit some pretty unusual places during the summer months. From castles to tree-houses, from beach-huts to yurts, we are now delivering far and wide to ensure staycationing Brits get their sausages. “Our delivery colleagues will be true to our strategy of ‘being there’ whenever and wherever our customers need us, as they visit campsites and caravan parks up and down Britain to ensure those staycations sizzle.”

Record numbers of UK residents have been taking holidays at home this year with tourist promotional body Visit England reporting a surge of Brits choosing domestic vacations and overnight stays. 
There are no official figures as to the reasons why Brits are enjoying staycations this year, but one theory is the weakening of the pound and a rise in terrorists incidents in Europe, as well as a wealth of fun and high-demand tourist attractions in the UK. 

Anja Madsen, Sainsbury’s head of online operations, said: “In the locations that are famous for being summer holiday destinations we have to take on a significant number of extra colleagues in order to meet demand.  In Truro, for example, this summer the store increased the number of drivers by over half (52 percent) and increased ‘shoppers’ by 60 percent to accommodate the 20,000 extra items sold. It’s a great way to offer local employment to people who can only work during holidays.”