Shopping for groceries online is unlikely to become available to Irish consumers any time soon. Finfacts E-Business, newsletter of the Irish business gateway www.finfacts.com, found that retailers felt such a service was not financially viable.

Retailers traditionally have very low margins and they feel that Irish shoppers would be unwilling to pay a premium for an online selection and home delivery service.

A Superquinn spokesman said the economics of shopping for groceries online is poor to pathetic.

Although Tesco is aggressively marketing the TescoNet home shopping service in Britain, low PC penetration in Ireland is an obstacle to setting up a similar service here.

However, a spokesman for Tesco told Finfacts that if enough customers were interested, they would seriously consider implementing the service in Ireland.