Ocado, the online grocer, has reported a 40% surge in sales in the last three months and said it would benefit from the “dramatic and permanent shift” towards online shopping over the past year. Ocado said revenues had grown 39.7% to £599m in the 13 weeks to 28 February, with average orders per week rising 2.5% to 329,000. The average order cost £147, up from £110m a year earlier, which Ocado put down to shoppers spending more on home grocery deliveries over the festive period, when many had to change their Christmas plans at short notice after stricter coronavirus lockdown measures, were introduced in England and during the latest national lockdown that followed in the New Year. The coronavirus pandemic has led to a boom in online shopping, and supermarkets have benefited in particular, as many office workers have switched to working from home. The proportion of food shopping done online has doubled to 14%, from 7% to 8% before the pandemic. Ocado started selling Marks & Spencer products in September, after ending a longstanding partnership with Waitrose. The new alliance got off to a rocky start but in the last three months M&S products made up more than a quarter of the average Ocado basket. The firm said it was registering more new customers than it could serve every week. Tim Steiner, the chief executive, said: “We don’t expect that we’ll go back to the way things were pre-Covid. Large numbers of customers have tried online grocery for the first time and for the most part they see its benefits and won’t be going back.” As lockdowns ease, basket sizes will return to more normal levels, but Ocado expects to be able to deliver a greater volume of orders. It anticipates positive sales growth in the next three months, but at a slower pace, given the surge in sales during the first lockdown a year ago. Traditionally, customers put in bigger orders for delivery over the weekend, but order sizes have been similar for all days of the week during the pandemic, as many people have stayed at home, according to Ocado. Steiner said many companies had indicated that their staff would be splitting their time between home and the office in future. As Ocado adjusts to the “new normal” in online shopping, it is ramping up its warehouse capacity. At the end of February, it opened its first mini warehouse, which uses robots, in Bristol, capable of fulfilling 30,000 orders a week, to speed up delivery. A second mini warehouse is planned in Bicester next year. Ocado also plans to open two standard sized warehouses in Andover (to replace one destroyed by fire) and Purfleet in the autumn, as demand for online groceries rises. The three new warehouses together will raise its capacity by 40%. In addition, Ocado is looking for at least a dozen new micro sites in London to support the rollout of “Ocado Zoom”, which offers deliveries within one hour of ordering, for a more limited range of groceries. The firm has started trialling electric refrigerated and pedal-powered vehicles for Zoom deliveries, and wants to expand its electric fleet, although the amount of energy needed to keep groceries cool and power vans, and the availability of charging points, pose challenges, Steiner said.