UK grocery chain Morrisons has partnered with cashback rewards platform Quidco to broaden the reach and appeal of its online shopping service.

A campaign on Quidco offers members exclusive cashback rates to first time Morrisons online shoppers. Quidco uses the demographic, behavioural and transactional data it holds on its 4 million members to pinpoint and target online grocery shoppers that haven’t shopped with Morrisons before.

“It’s a very exciting time for us as we roll out our online delivery service and we want to try and get as many customers as possible to give us a try,” said Morrisons digital marketing director Amanda Metcalfe. “Working with Quidco enables us to reach a vast quantity of highly engaged customers and reward them for shopping with us in the knowledge that once they've experienced our service they will keep coming back.”

According to IGD forecasts, the UK grocery sector as a whole is set to be worth £203 billion by 2019, increasing by 16% from its current value of £175 billion. Online grocery is currently worth £7.7 billion and is forecast to be worth £16.9 billion by 2019.

“The online grocery market is growing rapidly. Our members spent close to £3 million from June 2013 to the same time this year, a year on year growth of nearly 40%,” commented Andreas Andreou, commercial director at Quidco. “The market is getting more and more competitive and supermarkets need to utilise marketing channels that help them target prospects that are likely to shop with them.”

A latecomer to e-commerce, Morrisons launched its online strategy in earnest in late 2013 and announced plans to deploy it during the course of 2014, focusing on its fresh food proposition.