Waitrose Online Groceries - Consistent Problems

Jaith

Anybody else disappointed with Waitrose online grocery deliveries? We've tried most of the big brands for online shopping, and have been using Waitrose for the last year. Almost every single week I end up phoning up to request a refund for one of the following:

1) Very close expiry dates, e.g. recently had 4 bags of salad delivered in the evening, every single one of which had an expiry date of the following day (use by, not best before). Meat sometimes even comes with an expiry date the same day - that can be frozen and thawed at least, but it's an inconvenience.

2) Items completely missing which we've been billed for. This happens every second or third shop.

And then there are frequent poor substitutes, but at least I can spot and return those at the point of delivery. For example coriander swapped out for basil. Anybody who cooks would know this is a stupid idea, but speaking to one of the delivery people about it, they told me that the food selection and packing has been mainly allocated to young trainees, many of whom do not cook.

I should add, I'm not fussy about best before dates and will often eat vegetables and eggs days or sometimes several weeks afterwards, but for other items it's not safe. Some can be frozen happily, but other things would just get spoiled. They do state that you can specify how fresh you'd like the food at the point of order, but the note must be made against every single item, and is not saved the next time around, so it's just impractical. There is a reasonable expectation around freshness which is just being ignored.

Very surprised given Waitrose's generally excellent reputation which is indeed my experience in store and at John Lewis. Almost every time I complain, whomever I speak to is very helpful, but the processes never seem to improve - it seems the feedback either doesn't get passed on to the people doing the packing, or more cynically, they may have a policy of palming off the food that is about to go bad to online shoppers some of whom may not feel comfortable to complain.

A._Badger

Like you, I've tried most of the online services but even the one I finally settled on, Ocado, has become so unreliable that I recently started a thread about them on this forum. It sounds like Waitrose has been taking lessons.

An elderly relative, who has no Internet connection, uses Sainsbury's, which she believes is the only supermarket that still takes telephone orders. Unfortunately, in addition to delivery charges, they charge extra for the 'trouble' of taking a phone order and every week she calls me to tell me what they have got wrong this time - it's usually quite a list!

I am starting to wonder if what could and should have been a welcome new way of shopping is being derailed by the supermarkets' unwillingness to invest in quality staff - because it always seems to be the order picking that is at fault.

Petula

We use Waitrose quite often and have never had any real issues with either the products or the service. I thought it was a company wide policy, but I don’t know for sure, that when an item is close dated it is free. Whenever (and it’s not often) that something is close dated in our order it has been free - for as long as I can remember!

As far as missing items, I don’t think that we’ve ever had one .

I will ask around now to get an idea of which of us is the exception