Supermarket deliveries?

SusanCarter

In a recent thread someone mentioned supermarket deliveries being more environmentally friendly than driving individually to the supermarket. Unfortunately one has to pay for this but it could still be money saving depending on how far you would have to drive to the shop. In the old days (or at least in my mum's old story books) people seem to have had many items delivered as standard but these would have been by a delivery boy on a bike from a local shop. If everone had their stuff delivered, supermarkets could just send their stuff direct from warehouses and abolish actually having stores. (Yes it's a crazy idea but I'm trying to create discussion.) Perhaps delivery should be free if people spend over a certain amount? What do people think?

conradmum

It IS free for me. (And could be for you too.) I use voucher codes. In fact I often end up with at least £6 off a weekly shop, depending on how I use the points.

wigginsmum

Sounds good to me, Susan - I don't drive so having a monthly delivery is easier for me than walking to the supermarket and having to get a taxi back with all the shopping. I think there'll always be a demand for the 'open store' though.

KraftyKate_2

I have used Ocado several times now. It's free delivery over about £75 I think but they are often tempting me with free bottles of wine etc if I spend more. I do a monthly shop with them and order all my cleaning materials, tins, dry goods, toilet rolls etc - in fact everything that's bulky and/or heavy. It certainly works for our family! I hope I am being more environmentally friendly by using this - they use a diesel van. It saves me a great deal of time and effort and the service is excellent.

wigginsmum

Yep Ocado stuff is excellent quality if you don't mind the higher prices.

budgetbus

the delivery may be greener but the amount of plastic bags they use isnt(tesco seem to stick every item in its own bag.....:rolleyes:

Mrs_B_12

I've recently started using Tesco and find the number of bags amazing. You can give them back to the driver though to go back to them for recycling, or do as I do and use them as bin bags instead of buying them. With 3 kids I often find I have rubbish that needs bagging up before going into the wheelie bin so that reuses the bags and saves buying more.

SusanCarter

conradmum wrote:

It IS free for me. (And could be for you too.) I use voucher codes. In fact I often end up with at least £6 off a weekly shop, depending on how I use the points.

True but free delivery as standard for everyone (rather than for cunning people like us who use codes) would be better.

se999

I think with totally free delivery especially with no minimum spend people would place lots of orders for odd items, so very inefficient enviromentally as well as no money for the company. Sorry I only know about Tesco's but they use variable pricing to try to make people have deliveries at off-peak times too.

We saw the effect of free delivery with no minimum spend a while ago on one of the voucher threads when someone posted a code with no minimum spend, some people were ordering just one or two items.

Like others I tend to use it for big shops to make the delivery charge cost effective if I have to pay it. Also I use it especially at busy times like Christmas & holidays when if you try to go shopping in any town by car you can have to queue for ages even to get a space in a car park, so I do think the less cars there the better.

On the distribution centre idea, I have vague memories that one of the supermarket chains tried this initially, but it didn't work for various reasons, the supermarkets that had succesful schemes were the local delivery ones. Someone else might have more info. But this was right at the start of internet shopping for normal groceries, so it might just have been a matter of not enough users at the time. Edit - Found this link about when Asda closed some centres in 2002

http://www.elogmag.com/magazine/16/asda.shtml

SusanCarter

se999 wrote:

I think with totally free delivery especially with no minimum spend people would place lots of orders for odd items, so very inefficient enviromentally as well as no money for the company. Sorry I only know about Tesco's but they use variable pricing to try to make people have deliveries at off-peak times too.

We saw the effect of free delivery with no minimum spend a while ago on one of the voucher threads when someone posted a code with no minimum spend, some people were ordering just one or two items.

Yes I agree about minimum spend - said it in OP but forgot to mention it in later post. That's a good point about delivery timings which I hadn't thought of. Not sure how to solve it though as obviously some people can't be in during the day. Maybe they could give extra points/freebies for those who take delivery at unpopular times or have it free then and charge for the more popular times. When I was single and working full time I had to fill up with petrol every 8 days so did my shop then so I suppose delivery would need to be more aimed at those who need petrol less often and need food more often. (Hope that makes sense.)

SusanCarter

Another thing I just thought of is that free delivery codes are only around for Tesco which isn't necessarily where everyone wants to shop. I am suggesting that all shops should do free deliveries (subsidised by the government perhaps?) which would then give people better options. We can't get Ocado but £75 seems a steep minimum spend for free delivery. If everyone got deliveries, then it would be very efficient and wouldn't matter if you ordered less. Also £75 is a lot to be able to spend unless there's a few of you (I suppose you could club together with neighbours) and would be impossible for those people who are on benefits for example. If everyone got deliveries, they could come to particular streets on a regular basis perhaps one "prime time" and one non "prime time" slot. Actually that reminds me of the veg van which used to come when I was little. They'd ring on the doorbell one day a week at about 6ish and everyone in the street would go out and buy their fruit and veg. That must be the most effiecient way of doing it?

(Oh dear I'm rambling again. Whoops!)