Ocado - are the wheels falling off?

andygb

A._Badger wrote: »

I gather that my deliveries come from a depot somewhere near the dome, in Sarf London, which is quite impressive as I'm in deepest Kent. It seems a long journey for a few bags of groceries.

Thanks for the suggestion. I have tried Waitrose in the past and was quite impressed. They are probably the one I will try next - anyone but Sainsbury's!

There used to be an Ocado delivery warehouse in Aylesford near Maidstone, but I think they moved some time ago to Belvedere North of Dartford.

nearlynomadic

I have found in my six years of shopping online with Ocado and others, that deliveries arriving on Friday, Saturday and Sunday do tend to have more missing items.

When you order with Abel & Cole, you know that you will get everything, because the deadline for the order gives them even time to get more stock in.

I tried shopping with Abel & Cole about 2 years ago, and lasted a few months. However, the deliveries came on a Friday (no choice) and almost every week I would get an email - after the deadline - telling me that the item I had ordered was out of stock, and it had now been substituted with something that I invariably didn't want. This was particularly irritating when you had chosen several items to use to make a recipe and were then unable to make that recipe.

I got fed up of complaining to customer services every weekend, and ended up going to the local Asda there. At least at Asda you didn't select your items, take them to the checkout, have one or two snatched off you by the checkout operator and replaced with something you never wanted in the first place but were still made to pay for.

svince80

Ah interesting, we're also served by the South London depot and have had the same issues, lots of items out of stock and deliveries increasingly delayed. We had a slot for 8-9 last Saturday and it turned up at 11:20pm!! I get the impression that drivers are being asked to do a lot more drops than they were previously. To be fair, I called customer services and they immediately sent a £20 voucher, but with a small child I needed to be in bed by that time. I've just booked my Christmas slot as, frankly, who wants to traipse around the supermarket at Christmas, but we'll be cancelling Smart Pass in the new year.

MrsStepford

I've had Iceland turn up hours late but no-one else. Abel & Cole customer services and Ocado customer services IMO are the best in UK. Both Abel & Cole (owned by parent company of Aunt Bessie's) and Riverford (employee owned since Spring) have a different business model to the supermarkets. I have found the trouble experienced with Abel & Cole with Riverford, but not with Abel & Cole. The only annoying thing about Abel & Cole, is that the busier the rounds get, the longer the wait. Generally never get my order before 11am, has been 3pm before now.