Tesco wine sales online ordering: advisory

tempuscat

Thought I'd post this here as an advisory rather than tacking it onto my earlier thread ("Tesco 'ORDER CANCELLED': are we being too picky???"). If you want the background details, see that, otherwise:

Have today received the following letter from Tesco Customer Service regarding our complaint about late cancellation of online wine order:

"I sincerely apologise that we were unable to inform you sooner that we were out of stock of some of the wine you ordered.

"When your order was placed, the wine was in stock on our database. However, your order would be sent to our warehouse approximately four days before it was due to be delivered to you. It is likely that during this period of time, we may have sold more than anticipated.

"We do try to ensure that this does not happen. Unfortunately, on this occasion the products you requested were not available by the time your order came to be picked. Also, as our orders are picked from a central warehouse, and not from the store, we were unable to substitute lines for you due to one or more of the following reasons:

* The store may not sell the line

* We do not know what a customer likes or dislikes

* The pricing structure in store is different from our on-line warehouse."

Aside from the fact that Tesco didn't just cancel "some of the wine you ordered" but also claimed to have despatched the rest and only later admitted no, it never had, this letter is surprisingly casual for the way it acknowledges the main part of our argument:

That buying wine from Tesco online is a lottery, not a purchase, because you'll never know if that which is available at the time you order it is still going to be available at the time Tesco promises to deliver it.


What a way for a major retailer to behave: Tesco's order system is so self-confessedly hopeless that nothing is processed for several days, even though the company must know full well that during that time, stock can run out and the customer will be inconvenienced. (Our order was placed seven days ahead of delivery; Tesco therefore left it kicking around for three days).

We certainly wouldn't recommend any member of this forum to risk wasting their time and money on any Tesco online offers where wine is concerned -- and we're also not too sure, now, about continuing on with a company which writes to say "we do not know what a customer likes or dislikes".

Perhaps the new corporate motto will read:

"Every little helps. If only we knew what it was."

webmasterpolo

LOL I like the new moto. I would write back to them with pretty much your post above.

If they fail to deliver then they breach the contract, so buy the same wine elsewhere and charge them anything extra. Tell them you plan to do this and give them a quote. Ask them for a cheque in advance/refund. If you're going to buy it elsewhere anyway do so, and send them a photocopy of the receipt and ask for the difference.

They should give it to you if you are persistent, Tesco c/s is pretty bad at the best of times, usually takes a least 2, usually 3 or more letters to get what I want from them.

-Web

tempuscat

Thanks Web -- what a super idea!

We're baffled by Tesco's response about not bothering to process customer orders in a timely fashion, even though the company knows full well that its stocks are diminishing by the minute.

So we're raising the issue further up the Tesco tree. At the very least, we would like Tesco to add the following notice to all its promotional emails:

Whilst Tesco is happy to take your order, we are unable to deal with it promptly.
You could therefore be wasting your time if you make an online purchase from us, because we have no more idea than you do about our stock levels.
Accordingly, any item we agree to supply to you may well be unavailable by the time we actually get around to supplying it.

Tesco. Every little bit helps.
Unless we've sold it to someone else first.

fatal_3

I have just had this happen to me for the second time. I received an email on the Thursday morning with an offer of buying £12 wolf blass at £6 a bottle. I ordered at 11.30am and choose the most suitable time slot for me which was the following Thursday at 7pm-9pm. I had to order another 6 from a different deal to make up the mandatory 12.

On Wednesday evening before delivery (I was away on business) my wife received a call from them telling me they were out of stock with the wolf blass and did I want the other 6 bottles still delivered or the order cancelled. She told them go ahead with the delivery.

Disappointed in missing out with the Wolf Blass, I waited for the other delivery to arrive in the time slot agreed. Nothing came.

Next morning, I phoned customer support saying I had two compaints with the order
1) The lack of stock even though I ordered right after the offer came out and how can this be.
2) The non delivery of the other wine.

I was told the other wine had then sold out hence no delivery.

I reasoned with the guy that the lack of stock checking and delay in processing the order (4 days before delivery) was flawed. I was told this is the way it was and they sometimes ran out of stock. I continued to try to point out that I understood how the current system worked and pointed out that even though I had ordered the wine there was no guarantee I would get it. A lottery indeed. I also said if someone ordered after me, they could get the wine if they chose a delivery slot before me, because of the way the order is processed. Not exactly fair is it, surely the first come first served model at order point is what should be used. This is not the case.

I have no problem with ordering something and being told it is out of stock but will be delivered when it comes back into stock, what I cannot understand is why you have no option for this. In reality, I am not able to purchase the wine again at the offer price as it quickly goes back to £12. So I lose out regardless.

The icing on the cake was being told by the customer service person "We are going round in circles, the wine is not available, you can't have it, goodbye"
and then being hung up on. I was never unreasonable in the call, only trying to feed back into the flawed process, I was never given any escalation options, or discount vouchers for another order, if the person couldn't deal it, why not pass it up the chain - dont be ignorant though. I am glad the calls are recorded for training purposes, as I will be pursuing through a written complaint.

It is not about money as none changes hands, it is about customer service of which I attained zero. The sneaky T&C of stating the contract doesnt begin until dispatch is only there to allow them to sell only what they have whilst making maximum profit at some customers inconvenience.

I can only reiterate the advice from the previous posts.

Every little helps - it does to make up my mind to shop elsewhere!

saintscouple

Upon reading this thread i've just checked my order which i placed last Sunday, 6 days ago for delivery tomorrow.
The status of my order currently reads 'Not Dispatched' which means they haven't processed my order yet!
Thus 6 days after placing my order and they haven't even processed it yet?
So someone who places their order at a later date for an earlier delivery gets preference.... well that seems fair:o

Miró

My order, placed last Sunday too, is still showing as 'not yet dispatched' but it's just arrived!! No money taken yet either....

codger

fatal wrote: »

I have just had this happen to me for the second time.
I can only reiterate the advice from the previous posts.

Every little helps - it does to make up my mind to shop elsewhere!

Unfortunately the reality of Tesco is that it though it does spend £millions on an army of corporate lawyers to ensure that its land / property transactions are immune to UK taxation by dint of registering British sites by different colour code-names to holding companies in places as far apart as The Caymans and Andorra. . .

It cannot be bothered to spend a fraction of that amount on creating a robust e-commerce ordering and fulfilment system.

After our experience (similar to all the above) I complained to customer services (got nowhere) and also the actual director in charge of ecommerce: after all, he's on a £1 million + annual salary, so sorting out something that Amazon co uk manages without blinking an eye should easily be within his level of accomplishment.

But no chance there, either. (And even less now: he's gone to California to head up Tesco's "Fresh & Easy" assault on what's left of the USA's little neighbourhood mom & pop stores.)

"Fresh & Easy" is very possibly the private joke that circulates within Tesco's UK ecommerce operation anyway, as in: "we're fresh out of everything you order and it's easy for us to get away with a cosmetic apology because who the hell cares what you think?"

We don't buy anything online from Tesco: a company which can't even deliver me six bottles of plonk is clearly incapable of being entrusted with the purchase of anything else from its laughably inept "ecommerce division".

(And since Tesco's 'basic' wine prices are remorselessly ramped up according to the "price points" its "customer psychology evaluators" (yikes, wow) think the audience will tolerate -- hence the jumps between magical figures of £2.99p, £3.49p and £3.99p -- we've stopped buying its wine, too.)

Tesco.
Not Even A Little Help.

saintscouple

Well i'm surprised.
I have just taken delivery of my 12 bottle of Lambrini, for a total cost of £2.42.
Money taken from my account as well - although my order status online still says order not processed!

RadoJo

But surely the reason that the orders aren't despatched as soon as they are placed is because Tesco offer the option to alter your order until the night before or the morning of your delivery. This is an invaluable a service to some people whose needs might change between placing an order and having it delivered.
Apart from that, it simply wouldn't work for them to pick some of your order (in this case the wine) on the day your order was received and then any perishables, chilled or frozen products on the day of delivery. That would mean that the cost of having a delivery would increase dramtically.

I do understand why you're annoyed, but unfortunately, no system is perfect and for the reasons above, I can understand how Tesco might not be able t rectify it.

Think of it this way - if you had been into the store on that day, the wine would still have been sold out. Would it have annoyed you so much? I am sure Tesco would much rather have sold you the wine to be honest - it isn't in their interest to simply try to mislead you. It's just an unfortunate side-effect of offering the delivery service.

Poppy9

I too have had a wine order cancelled by Tesco without them telling me until I rang to enquire why I hadn't received my delivery!

I made the mistake a few weeks ago of ordering some books from Tesco's. I ordered 3 which came to £19 which meant I had free delivery. Delivery was scheduled for 22nd November which I thought was slow but as they were Christmas presents wasn't that bothered. After a week I checked on line to see if there was any change to my delivery date and found that one of the books had been cancelled the day before and as the other 2 came to £14.92 I now had to pay over £2 extra for delivery. So I cancelled them, or should I say, tried to cancel them. It wouldn't let me on line even though delivery wasn't due to take place for over 3 weeks. I rang CS and she cancelled the books for me - except she blooming didn't as they arrived unannounced the next day. I promptly sent them back with a line across parcel saying "delivery refused" and have been promised a refund. No doubt that is the bit that will take months.

Never again will I order Tesco books. Amazon, CD wow, Play.com etc can do prompt delivery and never cancel orders, why can't Tesco.

codger

RadoJo wrote: »

I do understand why you're annoyed, but unfortunately, no system is perfect and for the reasons above, I can understand how Tesco might not be able t rectify it.

Sorry RadoJo, but why this inexplicable display of generosity towards Tesco?

You're making it sound as if this multi-£billion commercial operation is trying to do its honest best in difficult circumstances but lacks the resources to "rectify imperfections" in its service.

Aw, shame. How sad.

And how unreal, because the truth is, there's an enduring and uncorrected structural fault that Tesco obviously couldn't care less about addressing:

Tesco does not, because Tesco cannot, draw upon a central stock of wine supplies that are specifically warehoused for e-commerce operations because Tesco will not invest in any such infrastructure.

All Tesco can do is draw on stocks that might or might not exist in a local branch.

This is like Amazon operating an online ordering system for books and gifts which depends entirely on how well the managers of a local Waterstones, WH Smith's, or Boots are maintaining their inventory. Idf it's in stock, you get it. If it ain't, you don't. Tough luck.

Tesco's entire online wine ordering process is known by the company itself to be fatally flawed due to Tesco's refusal to invest in it. In seeking purchase orders from online customers, the company is actually practising a deception as deliberate as it is sustained: certainly there's nothing of the following online content to make prospective purchasers aware of how much time and money they're highly likely to waste:

"No online wine order is guaranteed to be fulfilled, nor can any ever be.

"This is because, unlike every other respected major ecommerce operator, we do not operate dedicated warehousing with centralised processing.

"Although you may have thought we did -- especially after receiving our latest email about great wine buys online -- the fact is we really can't be bothered to shell out the kind of money every other ecommerce operator incurs.

"It would affect our annual profits.

"So this site is just a bit of window glass for a store in your locality, though with the difference that whereas you can get into that to see what's available, you certainly can't get into here to do the same. But even if you did, it wouldn't make any difference: we've no more bloody idea of the situation re your wine order than you have.

"Will you get it? Who knows? Who cares?

"Also: please don't think that when we said that free delivery definitely applied to your order, this promise meant anything at all.

"If it turns out we can't eventually dig off the shelf that which you've already paid for, we'll then charge you for ordering below the minimum amount.

"Let's face it: it's your fault. Not ours."

Thank you for ordering online with Tesco.


Just like playing the Lottery. Only much less fun.

*PS: I have to say, the rationale you give in your post -- that thanks to Tesco, consumers have an "invaluable" facility to change an order up to the eve of delivery -- is something so preposterous even Tesco itself hasn't yet dreamt up by way of an excuse. . .