Sainsbury’s has become the latest UK supermarket to expand the number of delivery options that are available to customers who order their groceries via safe shopping online, with the introduction of click and collect announced this week, according to Reuters.

Both Tesco and Asda already have click and collect as an incentive to get more people to place online orders, so the fact that Sainsbury’s has joined them is not surprising. What may be a shock is that it has taken so long for the firm to follow suit, given that the established supermarket chains of the UK are struggling to cope, in the wake of the rise of budget rivals, Aldi and Lidl.

Over the coming months, Sainsbury’s will be rolling out the click and collect service to a hundred of its stores across the country, although in the short term, just 20 bricks and mortar outlets will be available as designated collection points.

There are a number of benefits with click and collect for both consumers and retailers, chief among which is the immediacy of the whole operation. People can place orders via safe shopping online and then pick them up in-store the same day, in most instances, and it is not only supermarkets that are in on the act.

This also means that any delivery costs are eliminated and consumers can also save the time that they would otherwise have spent wandering around the shop and collecting items individually.

Retailers, meanwhile, need not worry about organising deliveries and covering the costs of the logistics involved, which is good because, in many cases, they are actually losing money on grocery delivery services.

Sainsbury’s is joining the market at a pivotal point, because click and collect is one of the main weapons in the arsenal of the biggest supermarket chains, as they do battle with budget interlopers.