Tesco, Britain's largest supermarket chain, was able to take the lead in online groceries by devising a fairly simple system: goods ordered over the internet are picked from the shelves of the nearest supermarket and delivered to homes within set time slots.

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But less than 1% of total U.S. groceries sales happen online, despite the fact groceries accounts for one of the largest retail categories offline.

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It recently bought a stake in Yihaodian, a fast-growing online retailer of groceries, consumer electronics and apparels.

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Some people avoid supermarkets and buy their groceries online from firms such as Fresh Direct in America and Ocado in Britain.

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Before that Browett was at Tesco.com: selling groceries online also sounds like a strange start for someone hired to run a very upscale retail experience like the Apple stores.

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Nielsen, a research firm, found that the two most common reasons Americans gave for not buying groceries online were delivery costs and the desire not to have to wait for a delivery.

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Back when dotcoms boomed, some of the hottest new e-tailers were firms that promised to relieve people of the tedium of trailing around supermarket aisles allowing them to order their groceries online instead.

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He's selling chunks of Priceline to Paul Allen, John Malone and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and investing the proceeds in a Priceline-like venture that sells groceries and gasoline online.

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It's nice to have the week's groceries delivered and indeed both Tesco and Sainsbury's pushed up Christmas online sales of it by about 30% but it doesn't save money.

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