Tesco grocery deliveries - increasing numbers of out of stock lower cost items?

Doc_N

It's been very noticeable over recent weeks that Tesco are restricting delivery of various lower cost items such as butter - and now grapes. What's happening is that the standard priced Tesco items (frequently the ones marked 'Aldi Price Match') are impossible to order, leaving much more expensive products as the only alternative for those shopping online.

Instore, the products are on the shelves in the normal way.  Online they show as out of stock and unavailable to order.

Anyone else shopping online noticed this?

Misslayed

No, I’ve had no problems. Maybe a local supply issue?

Doc_N

Misslayed said:

No, I’ve had no problems. Maybe a local supply issue?

Maybe. It’s been going on for weeks now, though, and I was just curious to find out where the problem lies. What’s really annoying is knowing the stuff’s available instore, but not to order.

molerat

There have been threads on this before.  Home delivery is not really profitable, more a way to maintain market share at a cost, so boosting basket price is a way to sweeten the pill.

p00hsticks

Doc_N said:

Misslayed said:

No, I’ve had no problems. Maybe a local supply issue?

Maybe. It’s been going on for weeks now, though, and I was just curious to find out where the problem lies. What’s really annoying is knowing the stuff’s available instore, but not to order.

Could it be that your online shops are now being sourced directly from a warehouse rather than from instore ? 
I know I stopped shopping in Tesco because I found it so annoying having to continually navigate round the staff collecting online shopping orders.. 

Doc_N

p00hsticks said:

Doc_N said:

Misslayed said:

No, I’ve had no problems. Maybe a local supply issue?

Maybe. It’s been going on for weeks now, though, and I was just curious to find out where the problem lies. What’s really annoying is knowing the stuff’s available instore, but not to order.

Could it be that your online shops are now being sourced directly from a warehouse rather than from instore ? 
I know I stopped shopping in Tesco because I found it so annoying having to continually navigate round the staff collecting online shopping orders.. 

Ours still comes from a store, unfortunately. I suspect there are fewer problems with warehouse deliveries. Stores don’t like empty shelves, so they’ll cut off online orders for a product to protect store stocks.

Baldytyke88

I do find some products missing in my local Asda, no 2 pints of organic/local milk, just one regular example.

badmemory

Have you asked the delivery person which store it comes from.  I assumed when I had some deliveries that it was coming from the local large store less than 3 miles away.  When I asked it turned out they were coming from a smaller store over 20 miles away.  It was in a totally different sort of area where some products just did not sell so were never available.  Thankfully I only needed to use them for 5 weeks because it became very irritating.

Also if you are looking online it would appear if just one of those larger stores has no stock of an item then their website says out of stock.

A._Badger

Having slowly drifted back to Tesco now and then (because they sell some things I cant get in Aldi) I would agree that their stock control is bad. I had attributed that to the small size of the branch that handles home deliveries to me,.so it's interesting to read that it may have some other cause.

As for the butter question, however, that isn't unique to Tesco. It's pretty obvious that most, if not all. the own brand butters come from the same source because some time in the summer all the stores in my area - Tesco, Morrisons, Aldi and Sainsbury's suddenly ran out of own brand, which had been £1.69 a pack. Suddenly, they were nudging customers to spend more on what I suspect was the same product but in a Country Life wrapper.

Then own brand supplies began to reappear but only sporadically and usually at around £1,89. I'd wondered if it was a not so subtle way of edging the price up, a summer plant maintenance closure, or perhaps due to milk yields being down towards the end of summer but whatever the reason, I still can't find it. It would be interesting to know what really has been going on.

badmemory

I wondered if some suppliers were stamping their feet & saying pay us what it costs & allow us at least some profit & that is causing a shortage when they refuse to supply possibly at the end of a contract.

Doc_N

I don’t know what’s going on with Tesco, but to add to the butter issue it’s been impossible for the last few days to order any grapes at apart from the cheapo Suntrail Aldi Price Match ones - and these, like most Aldi Price Match items are grossly inferior to the Aldi ones. Poor quality and very short 2 day shelf life. 

Are grapes now in short supply as well as butter? Or is this just Tesco?