Waitrose introducing charges for home deliveries

Doc_N

I've heard over the last few days that Waitrose are introducing delivery charges for home deliveries in selected (trial?) stores.
Has anyone come across this in their stores?

The_Money_Saver_2

Yes; £5 fee at my store, irrespective of spend. 

Doc_N

The_Money_Saver_2 said:

Yes; £5 fee at my store, irrespective of spend. 

Not just a rumour then - £5 was the figure I heard mentioned for a Suffolk store.  Is yours in that area?

Bacman

According to their website, it confirms delivery charges will be introduced although no price specified as yet. Will be interesting if they also charge priority customers too.

Doc_N

Bacman said:

According to their website, it confirms delivery charges will be introduced although no price specified as yet. Will be interesting if they also charge priority customers too.

That's the end of our Waitrose shopping then. The much higher prices were tolerable when delivery was free, but a £5 charge on top of those higher prices - no thanks.

Bacman

I agree  .

The_Money_Saver_2

Doc_N said:

The_Money_Saver_2 said:

Yes; £5 fee at my store, irrespective of spend. 

Not just a rumour then - £5 was the figure I heard mentioned for a Suffolk store.  Is yours in that area?

Leeds area. Was surprised as there was no mention of this until I checked out and saw the fee added to the final total. Called WAITROSE to query and confirmed they’d recently introduced.

Bacman

Only logic can be that Waitrose split from Ocado around September last year as I recall, so before that they started online deliveries to get it going before that change, then were giving free delivery to build up a customer base (helped by the pandemic as they had slots), now they have a healthy customer base they are prepared to risk losing some of those customers in order to charge £5 delivery. They reduced the order amount from £60 to £40 a month which was welcome by most however I think there will be a backlash with this £5 charge and they will lose a lot more revenue from customers walking than they expect...

GaleSF63

I think something like this was likely to come after they reduced the minimum spend from £60 to £40. 

It's a kind of merry-go-round; they will lose some customers to other supermarkets until they start putting up their charges (Tesco already have changed to a standard charge of £4.50).

I look at it from the point of view of paying someone to do something I can't do myself.  A service for which I'm very grateful.  And I don't suppose it comes cheap - the picker's time, the driver's time, the vehicle.

 We don't normally expect things free - perhaps we've been spoilt. However a sudden jump of £5 does grate rather!

KxMx

Tesco is £4.50 for an hourly slot.
For a 4 hour flexi slot (text confirms 1 hour window on day of delivery) it's £3.

williewonder

I do like Waitrose, they have excellent selections and I do my online shopping there every week but I don't think I'll be happy paying £5 delivery fee on top if their high prices.