A Sainsbury's insider today claimed the number of people using the abandoned Orderline shopping scheme far exceeded the company's target figures.

The employee, who does not wish to be named, also claimed what the company has described as a "short waiting list" actually amounted to more than 140 names.

According to the source, staff were told to stop signing customers up for the scheme as early as November last year while the waiting list continued to grow and they are devastated the scheme is to be axed after a year of hard work.

Sainsbury's said last week the scheme had failed because of a low take-up at the Monks Cross store.

"There were 375 people using the service and that to me is not a lack of demand," said the staff member.

"We were told to stop recruiting people for the scheme on November 28 last year so we could concentrate on taking Christmas orders.

"But we kept taking names and addresses and were told we would continue recruiting in February.

"We never started again. They just kept saying they needed time to reformulate and streamline. We don't feel it has been given a fair chance."

The ambitious online home shopping experiment was launched in a blaze of glory last May in 26 stores nationally.

It was hailed as a breakthrough for home shopping as customers could order their goods on the telephone, fax or internet and either have them delivered or pick them up at a specified time from a store pick-up point.

A Sainsbury's spokesman said it was monitoring the scheme in 26 other stores nationwide operating it. She said there had been no decision made to terminate any other services.

Speaking about the claims regarding the York service's popularity, she said: "The number of customers actually using the service is commercially sensitive information and we wouldn't give that out, but our decision to stop running it is not one we would take lightly.

"It was being run as a trial to gauge the level of demand from customers and, after careful consideration, we feel that at the moment there isn't sufficient demand to continue to run it. That is something we would review in the future."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.