Frozen food specialist, Iceland, has been voted the nation’s favourite provider of safe shopping online for groceries, outdoing major rivals including Tesco and Sainsbury’s, to take the top spot in a recent Which? survey.

Seven thousand consumers participated in the study, with Iceland managing to beat its competitors thanks to its free delivery policy, which comes into effect on any order worth more than £35. This means that people can buy their groceries without also having to pay for the order to be brought to their doorstep.

Fans of Iceland also regularly cited the quality of the products it offers as being the main reason for selecting it as their supermarket of choice.

But while it managed to take the biggest chunk of the popular vote in terms of safe shopping online, Iceland lost out to Waitrose in the quality of the in-store experience. Respondents said that Waitrose outlets were clean, tidy and staffed by friendly employees willing to help customers with any queries.

Report spokesperson, Alex Neill, said that in spite of the fact that British consumers place a lot of emphasis on low prices, online shopping habits are still dictated by the products which are on offer and Iceland has managed to succeed in living up to expectations in both of these areas.

Two companies which did not earn as many plaudits as their rivals were Asda and the Co-op, with the former being criticised for often lacking adequate stock levels for popular items, while the latter was lambasted for its less than ideal in-store shopping experience.

Consumer surveys like this are important not just for helping people find out the best places to shop, but also to enable retailers to make improvements based on the expectations of customers.