Industry forecasts call for 5% to 7% of consumer packaged goods purchases to be made online over the next five to seven years, according to Joe Quinn, Procter & Gamble's director of global e-commerce.
So P&G has taken a $7.5 million, 1% stake in a British online grocer that it hopes will help it learn more about direct sales to consumers over the Internet, David Holthaus reports.
P&G
has been supplying Ocado -- whose 150,000 users click up annualized sales of about $500 million -- since 2000. The investment, however, gives it "an opportunity with a small, nimble company to learn
to better communicate with consumers and deepen our knowledge of Internet shoppers," says P&G spokesman Damon Jones. "We see their business model as a fertile testing ground for new ideas."
P&G's presence in direct Internet sales has been relatively small, but it does sell directly through a site called theessentials.com. The site, a legacy of its Gillette acquisition, is actually owned
by a third party, Field Companies, and sells only P&G products. P&G products can be bought through the Web sites of its brands, such as pampers.com, but online shoppers are redirected to
theessentials.com or to another retailer's Web site.
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