Sainsbury's ambitious online home shopping experiment has failed in York after a national pilot study failed to impress the city's shoppers.

A Sainsbury's spokeswoman confirmed the Orderline service - one of only 27 pilot schemes operated by the group nationwide - is to be cancelled. The last date for delivery from the service at Monks Cross will be Saturday, May 22.

The store is to be the first of Sainsbury's chain nationwide to suspend the service, launched in a blaze of glory last May.

The spokeswoman said it would keep monitoring other UK sites, but stressed it was still "too soon and commercially-sensitive information" to say if any of the other 26 stores would be affected.

Orderline was hailed as a breakthrough for convenience shopping, where customers who did not want to or were unable to leave their home could order their shopping over the telephone, fax, or internet.

Sainsbury's Monks Cross store has 300 employees, a number of whom are represented by the Transport & General Workers Union. Sainsbury's stressed that those currently working on Orderline will be found other positions within the store.

Orderline was initially expected to attract between 100 and 300 customers, but it is understood this target was not achieved.

After registering with Orderline, customers were taken on a tour of the shop brandishing a hand-held bar code reader. Any item which was ever likely to appear on their shopping list was "zapped" by the device and added to the customer's computerised catalogue.

The shopper simply contacted the store with a list of requirements, and goods were then left for collection or delivered.

A Sainsbury's spokeswoman said today: "Unfortunately, due to lack of demand, the numbers using the service are insufficient to make it feasible. All we can do is apologise to previous and existing customers who have used Orderline."

Cut-price England soccer shirts were selling like hot cakes today at the Monks Cross Asda store where they are on sale for £10 less than in the high street. Asda has bought up 6,000 of the shirts which went on sale at 9am today in selected stores including York.

see COMMENT 'Net shopping yet to take off'

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