Bestway is placing further pressure to retailers by adding a £500 minimum spend requirement and £10 + VAT charge to click-and-collect orders.

The new terms were communicated to retailers on the wholesaler’s website. Previously there were no requirements for minimum spend or fee to qualify for the service.

Bestway has also upped the requirements for orders of centrally picked items, requiring that retailers purchase the products in conjunction with a £1,000 minimum for main orders, excluding tobacco and VAT. Previously this was restricted to £750.

These latest terms come as Bestway raised the minimum spend for free deliveries from £1,000 to £1,250 in October. Similarly, any orders between £1,000 and £1,249 will incur a £30 delivery service charge + VAT. Any order under £1,000 will not be eligible for delivery.

At the time, retailers told Better Retailing that the increased terms would put further cost pressures on smaller shops.

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A Bestway spokesperson said: “The changes to the minimum spend requirement and the introduction of a click-and-collect charge have been implemented to cover some of the business’s increased utilities, labour and fuel costs.

“Wherever possible, we choose to mitigate price increases, ensuring we deliver the best value to our customers. We remain wholly committed to investing in price and promotions where we know we can help our retailers grow their businesses and these changes are more of a catch up to reflect current practice and ensure we continue to provide the most efficient service for our retailers.

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“An important point to highlight that the overwhelming majority of our retailers already meet the £500 minimum requirement by some margin – and as the click and collect minimum order requirement includes spend on tobacco, it’s much more of an acceptable requirement for any retailer to hit £500.

“We have a number of retailers who place multiple orders in the week, and so when we look at the consolidated orders the charges applied will on a smaller number of orders than before.”

“We know how tough it is for our retailers at the moment and we are doing everything possible to keep any changes to a minimum and implemented in the most fair and sensible way”.

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