Online shopping experiences, particularly fresh produce....

Tombo46

Ello everyone. I'm looking for some peoples good honest accounts of their on-line shopping experiences. Particularly when it comes to fresh produce. I'm interested in peoples experience of both the higher end of the market such as your organic delivery services (Abel & Cole, Riverford etc) and also peoples opinion of the service offered by the supermarkets particularly when it comes to fresh produce.

I own a long established Greengrocers and I have been working for the past year on moving into on-line based home delivery. We are looking to supply a small local catchment area of about a 5 mile radius so not on a massive scale (yet!). I want to give the best service I possibly can which is the reason for this thread.

I want to avoid the things people dislike and try to strive for the things people do like so I'm interested in peoples likes/dislikes about their current on-line ordering arrangement. Anything at all will be a help. The common complaints we hear with the supermarkets are things such as poor quality produce, being forced to buy more than they need (bogof's etc) and replacement item's not being anything like what they ordered. Positives usually include things like being able to choose specific delivery slots and generally low pricing. As for the organic services most people complain about the longevity and price of the produce and only being able to deliver once a week whereas people like the taste and the fact that it's organic.

Any experiences good or bad I'm really interested in hearing so I can shape the business to suit peoples needs instead of what I think they want.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can take the time to share their experience with me.

All the best,

Tom

natbags

Riverford drive me mad when the substitute something and you dont know till the box arrives - that useless if i've mealplanned around it. Also some of there stuff isn't always superfresh and doesn't last so well Also the delivery to my area is Wednesday, I'd prefer Mon/Tues for the week ahead

Diane60

Riverford do various sizes of veg boxes, but as stated, they do substitute items and you have no say about this, and cannot refuse it.
I do like the fact that you can buy each veg product individually and make up your own box......I think this way of selling would be more preferable.

Tombo46

natbags wrote: »

Riverford drive me mad when the substitute something and you dont know till the box arrives - that useless if i've mealplanned around it. Also some of there stuff isn't always superfresh and doesn't last so well Also the delivery to my area is Wednesday, I'd prefer Mon/Tues for the week ahead

I've heard this a few times. I buy my produce fresh every morning so 99% of the time the customer can get exactly what they ordered. I can't imagine not attempting to contact them though if I couldn't meet the order! I'm trying to offer a separate service to what the Supermarkets and the organic guys do by offering free delivery every day of the week (except Sunday as there's not fresh produce on this day). At first I'm intending on just doing evening deliveries with afternoon deliveries included on a friday and a saturday as these day's are more popular. The supermarkets charge upwards of £6 for a drop on an evening so I'm hoping the free deliver side of things will be appealing to people.

I've always bought my produce based on quality and taste rather than price so the majority of our produce isn't organic and is slightly more expensive than the supermarkets. I'm hoping to create a happy medium that people will like rather than being stuck with one or the other. Hopefully by pricing everything per item and selling it in small easy to understand quantities people will see the benefit of being able to buy exactly what they want and keeping it fresh instead of being made to feel like they have missed out if they haven't gone for the multi buy "offers". After all, fresh produce isn't fresh if it's been in your fridge for 2 weeks.

Thanks again for the input, it's much appreciated!

Tombo46

Diane60 wrote: »

Riverford do various sizes of veg boxes, but as stated, they do substitute items and you have no say about this, and cannot refuse it.
I do like the fact that you can buy each veg product individually and make up your own box......I think this way of selling would be more preferable.

This is the way I'm going with it. Trying to give the customer complete freedom over what they want to buy, not what I want them to buy. I'll be selling items as individuals where possible in easy to understand formats such as "1 carrot" or "hand full of sprouts" with their approximate weights displayed too. We will lose out a little bit here as we will always have to be on the right side of the acceptable margins but I feel it will be a worthwhile sacrifice.

I think in a few days I will start a thread that outlines the service that I will be offering to see if people think it's all a good idea or if there are certain bits they would prefer to be different or that wouldn't bother them at all. I have a clear view of what I think my customers want from feedback I have heard up to just but it's easy to think you have it all sorted. Hence this thread!

Big thanks for your reply. Every little helps! (Pun intended)