Sainsbury's to tackle Amazon and Tesco online by hiring 150 digital employees

Sainsbury's in an effort to gain market share in the fast growing online space is increasing its digital and technology headcount. The UK supermarket chain is hiring 150 employees to make its online store better and to help it battle the rising competition from other online retailers such as Amazon and Tesco.

The new hires will include software developers and engineers and they will work out of its office in Manchester's Arndale centre. Sainsbury's already has 900 other digital and technology experts across its London and Coventry offices.

This follows the company's recent acquisition of Argos owner Home Retail Group (HRG). At the time of acquisition, it had said the deal would help boost its online business and believed it would also help diversify the retailer from the highly competitive food retail business. "[The combined companies would create] a leading food and non-food retailer of choice for customers, building on the strong heritage of both the Sainsbury's and HRG businesses whose brands are renowned for trust, quality, value and customer service," it had said.

Jon Rudoe, the digital and technology director at Sainsbury's, said: "The world is changing rapidly. Our vision is for Sainsbury's to have a world-class digital and technology function to ensure that we can deliver great services for our customers whenever and wherever they want to shop with us."

Rudoe added that Manchester was considered because it was the largest technology hub in the country, after London. The expansion of digital and technology experts by Sainsbury's is not new. In the past year alone it has doubled its staff in this domain by hiring 480 experts, according to The Guardian.

Other retailers who are stepping up their game in the online shopping space include John Lewis, Marks & Spencer and Tesco. They too have setup technology hubs to improve their websites and to battle better the online competition.