For the many people who cannot face the weekly trudge down supermarket aisles, home shopping has come as a boon. Happily for them, the big operators are expanding home shopping to cover more of the population. Even better, it is now possible to buy groceries from home and get them delivered free of charge.

Iceland, Somerfield and Asda will waive usual delivery fee if an order is worth £40, £80 or £150 respectively. Otherwise, expect to pay £3.50 to £5 per delivery. The most complicated task facing a potential home shopper is finding out which supermarkets deliver in your area; the only way to find out is to telephone them or to check the company's website.

Even at £5 a delivery, the service is relatively cheap to customers with large orders, and expensive for supermarkets to operate. The bigger chains are counting on you doing extra "top-up" shopping with them between deliveries, and spending more per week. Smaller operators hope to use home deliveries to convert occasional shoppers into loyal, high-spending customers, and give them a chance to steal a market share from big rivals.

Iceland launched its home shopping site at the beginning of this month and now delivers goods to 97 per cent of the UK population. Although it is a frozen food specialist, frozen food makes up less than half of its sales. It does not offer the huge range and variety of Tesco, Sainsbury and Asda, but it can provide all the staples.

Customers spending £25 or more have been offered a free home delivery service for the past two years, and deliveries from catalogue orders, charging £4 a delivery but with no minimum spend, for the past year. Later this year Iceland will also offer interactive supermarket shopping on Open, the new digital television service, Iceland is extremely gung-ho about its home shopping initiatives, particularly the free deliveries offered via the Internet for spending at least £40.

Malcolm Walker, its chairman and chief executive, said: "While other food retailers will have to build picking centres, organise delivery networks and catalogue their ranges, we already have an efficient system in place. We have 1,000 vans and drivers already delivering nationwide, so we won't just be catering for a small section of the population around the M25 - like some of our competitors."

The UK's largest supermarket group is in the middle of a big expansion of its home shopping operation, now available to people living near 60 of its stores. It is adding five stores a week to its network, and will have 100 stores around the country offering home shopping at £5 a delivery by the end of February.

Tesco is the only supermarket to allow orders only via the Internet, having abandoned the earlier use of CD-Roms, catalogues and faxes.

Terry Leahy, Tesco's chief executive, is confident that, with increased use of the Internet by the ordinary public, it will become the most efficient way of taking orders.

Some customers, who may have problems coping with the technology, are not so sure. Tesco and Iceland are the two chains most committed to picking goods off the shelves, believing it is more efficient than using a picking centre to serve whole regions.

The number two supermarket chain, now struggling and the subject of bid speculation, has recently simplified its Orderline home shopping service in an effort to ensure that it does not lose out in this increasingly competitive market. It now gleans information on customer shopping habits from their Reward loyalty cards to build up a typical shopping list.

This means that new Orderline customers with Reward cards no longer have to spend an hour or so going around a store preparing such a list with a member of staff: a tiresome and unpopular chore.

Although it now picks goods from ten of its stores in London and the South-East, it is planning to build a picking centre within the M25, which should open in the middle of next year, to serve households in Greater London.

With David Bremner, deputy chief executive of the group, about to take over the running of the UK supermarkets from Dino Adriano, chief executive, it will be interesting to see what lies in store for Orderline and customers. Mr Adriano was not wildly enthusiastic about Orderline's prospects. Mr Bremner may be more so.

Another supermarket operator that is struggling to keep up with the competition, Somerfield hopes to regain some momentum when it launches its 24-7 home shopping service on the Internet later this month. It is also launching on Open.

The 24-7 business was formerly known as Flanagans, an operation based in South London that used to deliver Sainsbury's groceries before Somerfield bought it earlier this year.

Now 24-7 sends catalogues out to customers and delivers to much of London. Once the Internet business is up and running, it aims to continue to deliver to the London area, Bristol and Bath. It charges £5 for deliveries worth under £80, but those worth more are free.

Within two years it hopes to be able to serve all the major cities and towns in the UK from a string of warehouses. It remains to be seen whether it goes ahead with these plans, given a steep fall in its share price this year and rumours that it may be going to sell 200 of its stores.

Asda, the Leeds-based supermarket chain recently taken over by the American discount giant Wal-Mart, has come relatively late to home shopping, but has chosen it as a means of expanding its presence in the South of England.

Asda @t home has two picking centres, at Croydon and Watford. Customers can place orders using a catalogue or a CD-Rom. Asda plans to open two more picking centres in the spring. The minimum order is £50, for which there is a £3.50 service charge. Above £150, the service is free.

Asda @t home places a great emphasis on its service. Like other home delivery operators it offers two-hour slots for delivery, but Asda is unusual in that its drivers spend up to 15 minutes checking and unpacking shopping. And, in a rather bizarre touch, delivery drivers also wear shoe covers when entering a customer's home.

Safeway is the only big supermarket group not to offer home shopping - except to a few customers involved in the trials of a hand-held computer gadget called Easi-Order at its Basingstoke store. But Safeway does offer a service called "Collect & Go" at some stores, which allows customers to order by fax or phone and then later collect their pre-packed shopping - but for a relatively hefty charge of £3.50.

www.times-money.co.uk/family

Tesco:www.tescodirect.com

Sainsbury's: www.sainsburys.co.uk, tel: 0845-301 2020

Asda: www.asda.co.uk, tel: 0845-300 7777

Somerfield: www.somerfield.co.uk or www.24-7.co.uk, tel: 0845- 607 0247

Iceland:www.iceland.co.uk or www.icelandfreeshop.com, tel:0800-328 0800

Safeway: www.safeway.co.uk, tel:01622-712 987