Supermarket home delivery, views?

NickyBat

Well last night i decided to start doing my online xmas shop for next week and was astonished to find the only day i could get a delivery was Monday!!!!, every other day is booked up, can't believe it.

anniemf2508

Waitrose everytime for me...the drivers are friendly and really helpful and the subs are usually really sensible.
Tesco has always been hit and miss and i gave up with Asda after they kept getting orders wrong and being really slow at refunding.

babyfruitella

NickyBat wrote: »

Well last night i decided to start doing my online xmas shop for next week and was astonished to find the only day i could get a delivery was Monday!!!!, every other day is booked up, can't believe it.

:rotfl:They've been booked up since the minute they were released! You've got to get in early for Christmas slots. Although Asda is still offering me 23 December. Shame I hate them with a passion!

babyfruitella

I use Tesco on the whole. Used Sainsburys last week & wont be using them again. A lot of the products had short shelf lives but I wasn't made aware of this when I was taking the order in, & their customer service was abysmal when I rang to complain.

Had a Tesco delivery last night. Arrived 9:25pm for my 8:00-10:00pm slot. Only 1 item not available (which i'd expected as it was a bottle of champagne thats on offer), no substitions on a 60 item shop, & one loaf of bread with a short shelf life (it actually wasnt a short life though, it has tomorrows date on, & thats the same when you buy them in store, but still nice to be informed). Not so long ago one of their drivers had a crash en-route to us, & still turned up with my shopping even though he was badly shaken up.

Have used Asda on occasion, but too many subs for me & squashed items. Although one thing I will say for them, I did my christmas shop with them last year & they called to say they might not make it due to the van being stuck in snow. My slot was 3-5pm & the driver arrived at 4:35pm. I've never been more pleased to see someone!

on-the-count-of-three

bunty109 wrote: »

I've used Tesco and Ocado and Ocado are far better. Regularly used to shop with Tesco and had a fair few problems with them: I'm also not keen on hte 2 our time slots as they always seem to turn up right at the end of the slot (unless it's a late one!). Ocado drivers are really good, carry the shopping right in, take time whilst you check it etc. Ocado do price match Tesco on branded goods and have just start their own own brand range that's pretty good.

Not arguing Ocado aren't better..never used them so can't comment, (I find them a little expensive), but just to say, Tesco's carry your shopping into the kitchen etc too if you prefer this sort of service.
I suppose it also depends on where you live & the route the drivers take, but I would say 90% of the time my Tesco shopping has always been delivered within the first half hour of the time slot, but usually within the first ten minutes.

Clive_Woody wrote: »

Tesco are great but their price match policy means generally if your item is out of stock it gets replaced with a smaller/cheaper item to avoid them paying out, which is irritating if say you order 1kg of Tesco pasta and you get 500g of branded pasta as a 'Price Match Substitution'. Otherwise very happy with Tesco home delivery.

I've generally been lucky & have usually 'won' with substitutions. Also, they are put in a diiferent coloured or inside out bag so they are easy to spot & check & can just be handed back to the driver for a refund if not suitable.

NickyBat wrote: »

Well last night i decided to start doing my online xmas shop for next week and was astonished to find the only day i could get a delivery was Monday!!!!, every other day is booked up, can't believe it.

I know. It's just because it is Christmas week & slots have been booked for a while in advance. I suspect all supermarkets are the same at the moment. Normally you would be fine.

Ryan

We are strong converts to online grocery shopping. Having a big family does not make trips to the supermarket fun and we have ordered most of our groceries online for about 10 years now. We have used all the major retailers and based solely on our own experiences I would rate them as follows:

1 – Waitrose Deliver (not to be confused with Ocado!) Few would dispute that Waitrose offer the best quality food, but they have long been seen as expensive. However, since they have recently started price matching Tesco and Sainsbury’s on branded goods we have really noticed the difference and no longer find our shop more expensive than with Mr.T or Mr.S. We have found Waitrose service to be second to none and best of all if you spend over £50 you get free delivery, which more than makes up for any price difference anyway. The only criticism I have is that the service is not nationwide. I wanted to order a deliver for my parents in West Somerset, but it is not available there.

2 – Sainsbury’s. I’ve always found Sainsbury’s to very good. Deliveries are on time, the drivers are helpful, there are very few substitutions and of course the quality of food is high, as you would expect from Sainsbury’s. I would say that Waitrose pip them mainly because of the free delivery, which can mean a saving of up to £6 for weekend deliveries.

3 – Asda. The biggest attraction of Asda is of course price. They have won the Grocer magazine lowest priced supermarket award for 12 years running and we often use them when we need to re-stock on bulk buys such as rice, household products, beer, etc. We have also been surprisingly pleased with the quality of their fresh produce – unlike Tesco it looks like some care has actually gone into choosing bananas, tomatoes, etc. The service has always been fine, in fact their drivers are very friendly. The main drawback with Asda is the quality of some, but in fairness not all of their own branded goods, which are comparable with Tesco but on the whole not as good as Waitrose or Sainsbury’s.

4 – Tesco. We used to get a lot of deliveries from Tesco, but have found them increasingly expensive. They try to mask their high prices through their clubcard points offerings, but I’m not convinced. We have also found them to be by far the worst for substitutes - on our last order over 10% of items were substituted and some of the alternatives offered are ludicrous! Last, but not least, the quality of their fresh produce is appalling and in order to get a refund on £1 worth of battered bananas you have to spend 5 minutes calling their customer service on an 0845 number. Sorry but my time is worth more than that!

5 – Ocado. I cannot understand the fuss about Ocado. I read some positive comments in the press about them last year and thought we should try them, but on each of the 3 occasions we have used them we have been disappointed. The main problem is that we found them to be ridiculously expensive and certainly would not have used them if hadn’t been for the money off codes kindly posted on this forum. Additionally, we thought the Ocado own branded goods were poor quality and do not compare to Waitrose own-brand which they also offer. Finally, I have found the drivers to be quite rude. One driver had trouble finding our address and it was almost as if it was our fault! It’s not as if we live in the middle of no-where either. None of the other supermarkets have trouble finding us, but then, unlike Ocado most of their drivers are actually from the local area. I understand that Ocado make the majority of their deliveries from a huge warehouse in Hatfield.

Emily_B_3

Thanks for the comprehensive summary Ryan. I have also been using online grocery shopping for a long time and although I haven't yet used Sainsbury I would certainly echo your experiences on the others.

Tesco is getting incredibly expensive; where do you think their £3 billion annual profit comes from??

I think Waitrose Deliver are brilliant and now they have started price matching Tesco and Sainsbury on price, I think they are pretty good value with free delivery as well. I've never had any problems with Asda either but I do agree that their own brand products are not always as good as Sainsbury or Waitrose.

On a separate note I've been reading these forums for a while now and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of effort put to help other money savers. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

larmy16

My experience with Asda has been this. The delivery guys are really sweet. Both times though I had an entire bag of shopping missing.

First time the driver found it in with someone elses order. The second time we never did get it. I rang that night and was told someone would call me next day. They didn't. Rang again and was told that as it was under £10 I could have a refund.

When I rang after about 12 days the girl got quite huffy with me saying they can take up to 14 days to refund. The delivery was 15 November and they still have not refunded. I object to having to chase them up and then being treated as a nuisance so I wont be using them again.

Thanks for the opportunity to get that off my chest as it has been bugging me!

geordie_joe

Ryan wrote: »

3 – Asda. The biggest attraction of Asda is of course price. They have won the Grocer magazine lowest priced supermarket award for 12 years running

It means nothing

http://www.talkingretail.com/news/industry-news/asa-rules-asda-must-drop-low-price-claim

clemmatis

pullenuk wrote: »

I'm in Ashford, Kent. I got waitrose within sight of my apartment window and they do deliveries out of that store. Ocado deliveries from Maidstone, 20 minutes away lol. I can get both of them here, but no point since I'm a Sainsburys online driver and use my discount card from sainsburys to make the shopping cheaper! (But I love waitrose..... just don't tell sainsburys lol)

ah -- so I'm just unlucky? I would like to try Ocado. My Waitrose Delivery comes from a local shop -- local to me -- that has a rather restricted stock and doesn't always substitute well, and has only two hour delivery slots. Pity, I love Waitrose too. (I won't tell Sainsburys you do ).

Now Nectar gives vouchers for online shopping in Sainsbury, there's even more reason for me to make them my preferred online shop.