Octopus Tracker

kuepper

If it's so certain to be cheaper why isn't every Octopus customer on it and why don't Octopus flag it as an option when you join - I was only offered Flexible tariff or 12 month fix and had to google to find links re how to switch to Tracker

knight123

kuepper said:

If it's so certain to be cheaper why isn't every Octopus customer on it and why don't Octopus flag it as an option when you join - I was only offered Flexible tariff or 12 month fix and had to google to find links re how to switch to Tracker

Presumably because there is still an element of risk, although it's pretty low.

It's possible that as it's a relatively new tariff that requires a bit more processing on their back end, that they want to limit the numbers somewhat, at least for now.

Wonder how much their profit margins differ per tariff. 

MultiFuelBurner

kuepper said:

If it's so certain to be cheaper why isn't every Octopus customer on it and why don't Octopus flag it as an option when you join - I was only offered Flexible tariff or 12 month fix and had to google to find links re how to switch to Tracker

Because most don't understand it and even when talked through it still don't understand it and when you say the last year savings have been 25-30% discount on the electric price cap price they think it can't be real. Then they see the headline £1 figure for electricity and that's the nail.

I suspect 50% that can afford energy are happy with a fix.

Spoonie_Turtle

kuepper said:

If it's so certain to be cheaper why isn't every Octopus customer on it and why don't Octopus flag it as an option when you join - I was only offered Flexible tariff or 12 month fix and had to google to find links re how to switch to Tracker

I am no expert, but just some thoughts:

If Octopus were recommending it and the prices did dramatically spike, can you imagine the outrage?  It's still technically a beta tariff and people have to be prepared for occasional potential glitches (like being billed on an industry formula for usage between readings if any of the half-hourly smart data is missing in a month), and because of the potential risk it is only suitable for people engaged with their energy usage. 

If you're engaged enough to find out about it and willing to keep an eye on the price, it's probably suitable for you. 

But a lot of people don't know the first thing about their energy usage, often thinking their Direct Debit is their actual bill, and never checking that actual readings are being used.  (I used to not know anything about it until coming to this board, though I did at least send meter readings every month.)  Lots of people think the energy price cap is a maximum total they can be charged no matter how much energy they use.  So people need to know the basics before even considering a tariff with a price that changes daily. 
And in fairness a lot of people don't want or don't have the spare mental capacity to engage any more with their energy than taking readings and paying their fixed DD amount, knowing that the tariff they are on is at the price cap and are quite comfortable with that.

There is also the matter of people being spooked by Tracker price increases at or near the SVT rate.  People can jump off any time, but they cannot rejoin until nine months later, so decisions ideally need to be made with a long term view rather than short term.  To get the best out of the tariff, that's something people need to know before signing up.

When there was a bandwagon earlier this year, one of the deal sites recommending the tariff, Octopus put in place a waiting list so they could check with everyone wanting to switch that they understood the tariff and knew what they were signing up for.  That's also when they introduced the nine month wait to rejoin, I guess to prevent any mass exodus being followed by a mass rejoining.

And, Octopus have long maintained it's a loss-making tariff for them.  I still don't fully understand why (possibly because they hedged more expensive energy for customers on the SVT and then people joining Tracker end up paying less for it, and/or because they have to pay a market stabilisation charge for people switching to them?) but if that is the case then yeah you could understand why Octopus don't really want loads of people on it who aren't in it for the long run else they won't recoup their losses from them.

Telegraph_Sam

The fact that as I recall Tracker is not one of the options offered when you first ask for a quote must have a lot to do with it.

masonic

Just a reminder of why this isn't promoted to newbies...

MultiFuelBurner

masonic said:

Just a reminder of why this isn't promoted to newbies...

I would suggest the number of years it's been running the word Beta is now incorrect 😂

masonic

MultiFuelBurner said:

masonic said:

Just a reminder of why this isn't promoted to newbies...

I would suggest the number of years it's been running the word Beta is now incorrect 😂

I would beg to differ. Everything stated in that explanation is still true. As a case in point, I still haven't received an automatically generated statement since joining the tariff in July. I doubt it will ever be sufficiently free of bugs to be considered production grade.

MultiFuelBurner

masonic said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

masonic said:

Just a reminder of why this isn't promoted to newbies...

I would suggest the number of years it's been running the word Beta is now incorrect 😂

I would beg to differ. Everything stated in that explanation is still true. As a case in point, I still haven't received an automatically generated statement since joining the tariff in July. I doubt it will ever be sufficiently free of bugs to be considered production grade.

I wonder what a successful percentage would be then to be a main stream product and I wonder if they have met that. Nothing is 100% as can be seen on this forum for automation of readings and billing.

masonic

MultiFuelBurner said:

masonic said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

masonic said:

Just a reminder of why this isn't promoted to newbies...

I would suggest the number of years it's been running the word Beta is now incorrect 😂

I would beg to differ. Everything stated in that explanation is still true. As a case in point, I still haven't received an automatically generated statement since joining the tariff in July. I doubt it will ever be sufficiently free of bugs to be considered production grade.

I wonder what a successful percentage would be then to be a main stream product and I wonder if they have met that. Nothing is 100% as can be seen on this forum for automation of readings and billing.

All of their smart tariffs are currently beta I believe, so the only ones they consider mainstream seem to be the ones that can fall back on manual methods without loss of accuracy (keeping it beta also gives them a get out if a customer complains that they have the wrong pricing on their IHD).