Online grocer Ocado has warned that some of the items have gone missing from its shelves and some products have seen increased substitutions.
- This is mainly due to coronavirus linked staff absences which have hit supply chains hard.
- Ocado has said that the UK supply chain has been affected, which may result in an increase in missing items and substitutions.
- Supermarkets and other firms have warned about the effects on sales due to the third lockdown. Recently, another major retailer Greggs highlighted the uncertainty over the third lockdown and told its investors that pre-Covid level profits cannot be expected until by 2022.
- Commenting on the issue, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, Helen Dickinson has said that an early and widespread testing and vaccine rollout were key to put a curb to the frequent lockdown.
- Dickinson also demanded business rate relief extension beyond April, stating that retailers are likely to lose around £2billion a week in sales, and she added that almost 178,000 retail had already become redundant in 2020.
- On 11 January 2021, the stocks of Ocado Group Plc (LON: OCDO), traded lower by 0.69% from its previous closing, hovering at around GBX 2,464.00 at 11:38 AM GMT+1.
