Customers will be able to order their groceries from their couches and have the goods delivered to their homes.
Sainsbury's, the UK's second biggest supermarket group after Tesco, will offer couch shoppers as many as 15,000 products to choice from, compared with the 20,000 they would find in the average store.
The service will offer next-day delivery with delivery offered free on orders of over £50, with smaller orders carrying a £5 charge.
According to Robin Lassiter, director of home shopping at Sainsbury's: "Customers want even more choice and convenience in the way that they shop. A TV shopping service makes sense because more people have a TV than a computer."
Sainsbury's joins Iceland, HMV, and Argos, which are already available on the NTL interactive channel.
It is Sainbury's second foray into interactive shopping. Last year, it pulled the plug on its joint venture television and internet food and drink project, the Taste Network, which it launched with Carlton.
The Taste Network closed after just a year, having been conceived of at the height of the dotcom boom. The venture was designed to bring together Sainsbury's and Carlton's food internet sites alongside the Carlton Food Network TV channel to create the UK's first TV and internet food and drink channel. Sainsbury's e-commerce director Angela Megson left shortly after the venture folded.
The UK interactive grocery market is estimated to be worth around £7.5bn by 2005 and the Henley Research Centre suggests that shopping via TV will overtake internet shopping by 2004. The TV shopping market in the UK is currently worth around £81m.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .