Morrisons buys Kiddicare baby goods website

Image caption, Morrisons is looking to expand its online business

UK supermarket group Morrisons has bought baby goods website Kiddicare for 拢70m as a first move in building an online non-food business.

Morrisons said it would use Kiddicare's technology platform to develop its own non-food business, with the first products due in 2012.

Kiddicare, which was founded in 1974, has more than 40,000 customers a month, and employs about 130 people.

Its turnover was 拢37.5m last year, with 80% of its sales made online.

The company will continue to trade separately as kiddicare.com.

Morrisons is the UK's fourth-largest supermarket chain with 429 stores.

Morrisons chief executive Dalton Philips said: "This acquisition brings not only a respected, successful and fast growing specialist retailer into the Morrisons group but also a robust, scalable and highly advanced technology platform around which we can begin to build our e-commerce offer."