Marks & Spencer and Ocado have confirmed a deal which will give the High Street retailer a home delivery service for the first time.
M&S will buy a 50% share of Ocado's retail business for £750m.
The joint venture will be called Ocado and will deliver M&S products from September 2020 at the latest, when Ocado's deal with Waitrose expires.
Under the deal Ocado will also supply its own label products and big name branded goods.
"We think we've paid a fair price. This is something that will scale our business and frankly it's the only way we could have gone online within an immediately scalable, profitable and sustainable business," said Steve Rowe, M&S chief executive.
He said one third of M&S business would be online in the future.
Ocado founder and chief executive Tim Steiner told the BBC of the 50,000 products it currently sold, about 4,500 were Waitrose branded.
When the new joint venture is up and running these would be replaced by more than 4,500 M&S products, he added.
M&S will fund the deal by selling £600m of shares and by cutting its dividend payout to shareholders by 40%.
Ocado said the end of its 19-year deal with Waitrose would mean it no longer had to pay more than £15m in sourcing fees.
Commenting on the deal, Waitrose managing director Rob Collins said the supermarket chain had strengthened its own online business "significantly" and that it planned to double Waitrose.com within five years.
References: BBC
References: BBC
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