Christmas delivery slots 10 December 2014 at 11:46AM in Food shopping & groceries 5 replies 1.7K views

skyvicky123

Hi all,

Does anybody know if any of the main supermarkets will release extra Christmas delivery slots over the next week or so? I have stupidly missed my chance to book and now stuck getting my Christmas veg on 21/12.

At a push I have a collection slot on 23/12 reserved with Asda but would rather Tesco or Sainsbury (and would rather not have to fight my way into town!)

happybunny86

Have you thought about click and collect? I've done this with Asda before and I think tesco's do it too. You order you shop online as usually and pick it up from a store at a specified time. Asda do collections from some of their smaller stores and living stores so imagine tesco would do something similar.

skyvicky123

Thanks happy Bunny.

I do have a click and collect booked for 23/12 but would rather they brought it to me as town will be so busy!

Was hoping that some insider somewhere would know if they release the slots in waves so there might be more to come?!

alanq

I have no inside knowledge but I cannot believe that supermarkets would hold back slots and have customers go to a rival because no slots are available. I suppose that it is possible that some customers might have kept their options open and reserved slots with more than one supermarket waiting to decide nearer the time which one(s) to use. A few slots may become available if such customers cancel reservations that they decide not to use.

pullenuk

I work for Sainsburys. They have everyone in, shoppers to drivers leading up to Christmas. Noone allowed time off.

However we load vans on weight, basically it's routed in the best way for delivering the max amount of customers in a shift. However we have to deliver less customers per shift because frankly people order too much. We cannot exceed the legal weight limits. Therefore we often have to take vans out of service (unless the store already has spare vans) so they act as overflow. This can reduce the time slots available.

No. We cant just bring x amount of vans for christmas and the same for staff. Who pays for them? Training drivers is a 4 figure sum they need to work for a fair while to be worth that, so Christmas temps as drivers isnt cost effective.

Remember the more the business spends to deliver services the more you pay from prices and service charges.

I do know that Sainsburys phone customers who reserved their Christmas slot but haven't put in a proper order (you book a slot put 6 bottles of wine in it, checkout and come back nearer the time to amend). They simply phone to make sure they are going to order or request they cancel to be fair on others.

We don't hold back slots. Its fair game. All are available and once they are gone that's it. Some get lucky when a customer cancels and frees up a slot but it's rare.

alanq

I have just received an email from Ocado saying that they have "released" some slots and are inviting me to place an order order of £90+.

( I am not a pass holder just an occasional customer though I did have a free trial pass in the past)