Who has the easiest app to use for general grocery shopping where you might actually change the things you buy each week rather than just ordering from the same list all the time?
Who does intelligent product alternatives - not swapping out shampoo for baby wipes for example?
Who has a sensible app when browsing rather than listing things in alphabetical order?
I tried Sainsbury a few years back and it was absolutely rubbish but it may have improved.
I think we get the choice of Waitrose, Sainsbury, Tesco and Morrisons. Not sure about Ocado but have seen a van drive down the road once. Lidl if they do deliveries is probably an option too.
Currently if you get anything you ordered, within 48 hours of your delivery slot, think yourself lucky! This is me speaking from first hand knowledge!
....it's going to keep getting worse not better in the short term.
We use Occado once a fortnight. Fairly straightforward, now linked to M&S rather than Waitrose I think - MrsMC keeps getting her secret stash of Percy Pigs delivered.
No real issues with substitutions, if they can't be sensible they just don't bother.
Communication re delivery very good, most weeks involves a call saying they are very sorry but running early can they drop off in 10 minutes.
Tom-B - I am less worried about immediate delivery. If I need something today I will just go get it. I was thinking more about reducing my regular bulk shop to avoid the plague swap shop which is my local Sainsburys
Sainsburys is ok, mostly use the website rather than an app.
Substitutions can be a bit silly but generally ok and of course you get the difference back (as a voucher) so more often than not we are getting a free upgrade. We can always reject the substitution and you also get notified once they have done the pick, so you can plan around anything that was unavailable.
They are now nearly all 4 hour delivery slots now though. Problematic if you absolutely need a tighter window, but I imagine it helps them structure the delivery routes far more efficiently. Sometimes will call to deliver a few minutes early.
/edit - we also book the following weeks delivery slot about 5 days in advance, when we start building up the meal planner for the following week.
In my experience they run in this order, worst to best
Asda
Waitrose
Tesco
Morrisons
Ocado more than capable of screwing up orders but its ususally the driver not unloading enough boxes! We've used them for years and if they get it wrong, they fix it. Yet to meet am impolite or surly driver.
The whole ordering online interface is the best that I have used (Waitrose, Tesco, Asda and Sainsburys) and we pay 2.99 per month for mid-week deliveries. Limited to 1 per week at the moment, which is fine.
We use ocado, but their app isn't working at the moment so you just have to do it over the Web.
No significant substitutions over it last orders. Saves going to the actual supermarket which is a bonus.
We use Tesco and have no complaints.
We took a long time to go online because of concerns over fresh fruit/veg and sell by dates but its worked out well, anything we reject is taken off our bill before he leaves.
Substitutions are usually better (driver tipped me off recently to order a particular brand of lager as it was out of stock and they were shipping Stella instead).
I think we pay £6 a month and then get the pick of all the slots. I was told (pre-covid) they were losing money on each delivery so I don't feel ripped off.
If they are running late (or early) they have always rung to advise us.
The upside is we've gained back our Saturday mornings and spend less on "extras".
Website is ok and even if you don't use a pre-saved list it reminds you of any favorites/offers you may have missed when you get to the checkout.
I will try Ocado first based on this.
I have just checked and Sainburys have changed thier website since I last used it but the previous experience was trying to find some Pomodorino tomatoes that the wife likes. I could remember exactly what they were called pom something or other but they would be with all the other tomatoes surely?
They were not listed under tomatoes
The were not listed when I searched for Pom*
I couldn't scroll through all of the fruit and veg, or I could but it was about 60 pages
Eventually I found it under "Taste the difference Pomodori"
I also ordered some shampoo which was substituted for baby wipes. I later discovered that the pickers were given electronic shopping lists to follow. If something was unavailable they were told what the substitute item should be.
The substitute item was 'learned' by the machines from previous pickers choices. The idea was that most pickers would pick something sensible and so therefor something sensible would selected.
Unfortunately the pickers who trained the machines were also told to pick as fast as possible to set the expected bench mark time. This means that if they couldn't find an item they just grabbed the first thing that came to hand. This meant every colleague after that was prompted to do the same.
Have used Ocado since day one, whenever that was, but many years ago. Never had a single problem and have used them every single week since the start.
When M&S bought Ocado it got even better as I like M&S food although some of the individual more specialist items that used to come from Waitrose are now sadly not available.
Okay. Just registered for Ocado and there are no available delivery slots in the next three days and it won't let me move the calendar any further forward. Apparently I have to email their customer services who will email back if/when a slot becomes available.
Not the best start. Will try someone else
Only experience I have is with Asda and it was terrible. Unreliable delivery, odd substitutions and poor ordering systems. We gave up after 4 attempts.
Tesco temporary/covid delivery driver
I've been doing 2-4 days a week since April as a Tesco driver so I can give a bit of insight from my POV. Royston, and we deliver out to all the villages, down to Buntingford, and up to Saffron Walden.
Never experienced home delivery before but I'm actually a convert from the inside out - and will start using it myself. Subs are usually always appropriate and as a general rule, are always upgraded (if possible). Eg if you ordered a product in normal range, and it wasn't in stock, the picker would just pick up the tesco finest one
Pickers are under incredible stress and time constraint (not to mention, they begin work at 4am for the morning/afternoon deliveries) so considering this, I'm amazed how accurate/sensible everything is - rarely have a problem.
We have 12 vans & 1 permanently looping click & collect van to fit in 4 bays and get out in a two hour period three times a day - an absolute nightmare especially now every single one of our van loads is full capacity and nearing full weight. We have to make considerable effort to get 'ahead' and get to slots early otherwise we all end up back at the yard at the same time, and ultimately don't get a lunch break. So quite often - say we had 5 drops in hour X, we'd be calling drop 4/5 saying sorry we're 30 mins early.
I chat to the customers quite a lot (I'm self employed and customer service is #1 #2 #3 #4 in my books, regardless of who I'm working for) and I hear again and again "we're so thankful for Tescos, all the others have been a nightmare" - very anecdotal but it's what I keep being told!
If you have a named house, *please* give some indication where on the road to find it
Sainsburys gave me a 4 hour slot on Tuesday 26th for £1. The favourites listed appear simply be the last 350 things I have bought including a couple of sponsored items I haven't bought. Seem reasonably easy to get the regular repeat items and there seems to be some intelligence to their categories now.
Now I need to work out what we have in the cupboard and fridge that will have been used by this time next week, what we might have heard about on the radio or seen on TV that we fancy trying and what the weather will be like which influences our choice.
Wish me luck, I will be placing an order!
Yeah ocado is really busy we booked a slot for the 1st of Feb, only slots available were in the 4 days prior to that.
We got the annual membership thing as it makes deliveries free and you get to book a lot further out. We are normally booking a fortnight ahead now.
Tesco here - 8/10
Always on time or slightly early
Reasonable range and prices
But there are some quirks on the website which may be hide some of the less profitable items.
e.g. Tesco own brand toothpaste isn't returned as an option if you do a search for toothpaste
The bargain basement Orange Juice (price matched with Aldi) has an errant apostrophe in the brand name which means it's not returned when you spell the brand name how you should.
I'm sure there are others.
The removal of the shopping list capability also means it's harder to have a pruned list of regular items which you always buy.
On the whole its OK.
We think it depends as much on the local staff as the company (based on having used a few companies here and when on holiday etc). The substitutions seem to be manually done by a human being so depend on the common sense of the individual. Sometimes there is no sub offered - which when its something like cheddar cheese is frustrating - what there was no cheese in the whole shop? We have more issues with short shelf life meat/veg. Mostly we use Tesco. The biggest issue we have is with stuff disappearing from the basket completely. What we think happens is:
- you book a delivery for 4 days time
- you complete your shopping order with items A, B, C, .... P, Q, R
- you go back 2 days before delivery and add S, T, U
- they only deliver A, C, D .... P, S, T and substitute U for V
what happened to B, Q and R ? - we think they've become out of stock by the time you edit the order and just get deleted - no warning, no subs - just removed. If you've got 50 items on an order you aren't going to check every time you edit (well if you edit as much as my other half).
If any of the other apps do this better we might well swap.
Belong time user f tesco as the wife didn't want to waist weekends just shopping when the kid's were born.
that was 12 years and still using them and no inclination to look elsewhere.
Never had any stupid substitions I can remember of, always happy to return and refund and if any problem with items have emailed and sorted.
We pay£6 a month for delivery which I think is great value for the time it saves and the fuel to get there and back.
@flannol that is literally me other than I'm at at a different supermarket!
Okay. Just registered for Ocado and there are no available delivery slots in the next three days
Slots need to be booked up in advance (not sure why it won't let you do that but presumably because you have just signed up). The basket can then be modified up to the night before
Suppose it comes as second nature for us as we have used it for so long.
You might well have delivered to me in Royston!
Very interesting what you say about delivering early. That's probably my only slight issue recently. I usually book 5-6pm, and it's pretty consistently arriving 4:30-5, which means we quite often don't hear the door as we are on calls. I've stated putting a note in the delivery info box but it doesn't seem to have helped - definitely never had a call warning it's coming early either!
Overall would very much recommend Tescos. Subs are usually spot on.
Since lockdown one we've been using anyone we can a slot with, Waitrose, Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury. Can't really say the order or delivery process is much better or worse with any. Just grateful to get slots!
Oh yeah, pro tip.
If you book slots ahead of time with a token single item in your basket, make sure you're editing the right order the night before. Or you might end up with a single bottle of beer turning up on your doorstep instead of the weekly shop you were expecting.
Ocado won't let you do that, minimum order of £40. So rather than a bottle of beer you might end up with a load of random crap
Oh yeah, pro tip.
Managed to send two bottles of expensive gin to my teetotal MIL this way (£40 minimum).
Let's hope Sainsburys delivers and it all works. We don't really like Tesco as much as lots of the food doesn't seem as nice. Simple things like the cold sliced ham, pates, fish canapes. The little things that can vary between shops as opposed to the tinned tomatoes and bottled beer.
I've delivered a single bottle of champagne as a result of the above on numerous occasions!
Tesco here. We do the £6 a month thingy.
No particular complaints. Website works (on the whole) fairly well.
Have to pre-book slots a long time in advance. Currently seems to be about three weeks or a month, unless you like the unpopular times. I hear it varies depending on what shop your bread and beer comes from.
Also, that pro tip. Yeah, that. Definitely did not end up with one single bag of bananas being delivered that one time.
Very interesting what you say about delivering early. That’s probably my only slight issue recently. I usually book 5-6pm, and it’s pretty consistently arriving 4:30-5, which means we quite often don’t hear the door as we are on calls. I’ve stated putting a note in the delivery info box but it doesn’t seem to have helped – definitely never had a call warning it’s coming early either!
In my experience if they are early they know they are early and apologetic/understanding. About 1/2 the time they'll call to say they are coming early - the rest they just appear, but quite a lot of the drivers "know" us now and know we will be in. With one exception they are all pleasant, and coping well with covid rules. That one guy - insists on holding each basket at waist level whilst I unpack it which means he's face to face with me. I think this is because I once moved the box into the light so I could see what I was doing and he went on a radge about not being allowed to touch it.
No doubt also depends on location, how busy team/shop is etc, one thing to watch with JS is sell/use by date, some are very close, so freeze stuff and note if very near the date I think you may get a discount next time round, relates to meat/fish products. Ultimately it is nice to have deliveries, albeit I stick to cupboard goods and not so much fresh, get these locally. Good luck;)
We get a bollocking if we do more than 1 early delivery on a route. Nothing is said if we're late.....like everything really, some days are easier than others....sometimes the schedule is basically impossible to be on time with and you're running over 30 minutes late. Other days you end up sat around the corner waiting for the delivery slot to arrive for every other customer (I hate this as 99% of people are home in the current situation and if you're sat waiting you still need the engine running to keep the fridge/freezer.
I do late shifts so 80% of my deliveries are in the dark, which makes finding addresses really hard. We cover all the way up to Todmorden from my store, so some of the roads are a bit tight to say the least in the bigger Van's!
Mainly the customers are lovely actually....most are really thankful that you're delivering to them. I still find it all a bit weird tbh.....it's a world away from playing guitar in front of pissed folks at weddings!
Tesco deliveries for us...started last year when covid kicked in as it was the only company I could get deliveries from (albeit still difficult). Its totally changed my opinion of Tesco who I'd had a fairly low opinion from store visits. Tesco have saved me many many trips to supermarkets over the pandemic and Im very grateful to them & their staff for that. On top of that, I like their website and find it easy to navigate, they have always delivered on time (even with a flexi time slot, I always get a text the morning of the delivery which has always been spot on accurate with the time suggested), friendly staff and they have not made any silly substitutions. I'll keep using them now after all this is over too.
....probably completely jinxed my next order now ☹
I use Waitrose weekly and find them fine. Occasionally they might substitute an item but you get an email of your order on the day and it tells you what's been substituted and if you don't want it you just tell the driver, 9 times out of 10 the substitute is normally acceptable, and when you order you can click for the item not to be substituted.
Tesco here.
North of the wall the choices are Tesco, Adsa, Sainsbury's and Morrisons. I've had deliveries from everyone except Morrisons at some point, I couldn't get passed the Morrisons app, it was bloody awful.
Tesco was the best balance of price and availability. ASDA was cheaper but half the stuff was missing, Sainsbury's more expensive. Tesco deliveries were generally without issue.
Substitutions are usually better (driver tipped me off recently to order a particular brand of lager as it was out of stock and they were shipping Stella instead).
What beer were you buying that made Stella an "upgrade" 😉
We used to shop regularly at online supermarkets, being early adopters back in the late '00s. Unfortunately Covid hit and we couldn't find any delivery slots anymore, nor many for pick-ups.
To be honest, it's one of the best things to happen to us as it's forced a change of habit to use our really fabulous local fruit and veg grocers, butcher, baker and deli. We always used the local shops to some extent, but now we *only* use them.
I really can't overstate how much fresher and better tasting the food is. It tends to last the same time as supermarket food and there's no packaging waste. The weird thing is, it's actually about the same price overall as supermarket shops. On the face of it this can't be right because each unit is seemingly more expensive... but then that's offset by buying carefully and getting the non-food items (bog roll, toiletries etc) in bulk online.
I know this options isn't available to everyone, least of all those isolating, but I thought it was worth a mention.
what happened to B, Q and R ? – we think they’ve become out of stock by the time you edit the order and just get deleted – no warning, no subs – just removed.
The Tesco website lets me know this. If i go to amend my order i get a note about things that will not be supplied and informing that they'll be removed when i check out.
I actually get a bit disappointed as lately we've not made any gains on substitutions as they've delivered everything!
Morrisons were absolutely useless when we tried. No option to individually specify substitutions and they charge you the higher price for stuff you do substitute. The order was so incomplete I had to go and do shopping anyway.