For the last 5 or so months now we’ve been doing almost all our grocery shopping online and having it delivered. We’ve used Ocado and Sainsbury’s, and here are some of our experiences.

The basics of online grocery shopping ^

Most of these services have a couple of things in common, so this is what you should expect.

• Web interface. Pictures and descriptions of your food, but obviously you don’t get to touch like you normally would. This takes some getting used-to, but do bear in mind that you generally buy the same brands of products over and over whether you do it online or in person.
• Scheduled deliveries. You’re probably not going to be able to get a delivery for the same day, or maybe not even the next day. Online grocery shopping is not good for impulse purchases, but once again bear in mind that you’re probably already doing a grocery run once a week on the same day every week. Or if you’re not, then you still could easily adapt to that.
• Delivery charges and minimum orders. They aren’t going to bring you an apple and let you get away with just paying for the apple. Most of these services have a delivery charge and a minimum order value. In general the delivery charge is around the £5 mark so you need to consider whether avoiding doing the weekly shop in person is worth £5 to you.

Ocado ^

Ocado was one of my first choices because I’d gotten to like the quality of food at Waitrose, and Ocado is in partnership with Waitrose. Basically the same warehouses that stock Waitrose supermarkets also have vans to deliver Ocado online shopping.

Unfortunately, my first experience with Ocado nearly put me off them for life. I’d let the cupboard get fairly bare, and I’d lived on take out for enough days in a row already, so I was really counting on my order arriving. So I wasn’t best pleased when, around half an hour past the end of the the scheduled delivery window, I received a call from the Ocado driver saying that his van had broken down, he wouldn’t have time to get around to me, and I should call customer services to get refunded.

I went to call customer services on their 0845 number but after spending 10 minutes on hold and paying for it I decided I’d had enough. I called the driver back and told him I wasn’t sitting on hold just to get a refund, and I expected him to contact them for me.

I could understand that the unexpected happens; they can’t do much about a van breaking down when it has my shopping in it, and I could see how that could easily prevent my stuff from being delivered, but it was the fact they expected me to pay to be on hold and sort it out that rather annoyed me.

I ended up writing an email of complaint to Ocado, explaining that it was my first order and I’d been really relying on it, and making me wait on hold so that I could get a refund on shopping I’d end up having to go out of my way to fetch in person was really annoying.

To my surprise I got a prompt reply and a code for a £40 voucher! I put through a new order which arrived without incident, and I also received a free bottle of wine.

Since then we have made one order per week with Ocado. I can’t recall a single substitution or error on their part since the first time, and once or twice a month they have slipped in something complimentary such as a bottle of wine, a tub of ice cream or in one case a miniature bottle of single malt whisky.

We have never had a problem with the quality of the food, no badly bruised fruit and veg or dented tins or anything, and nothing close to its “best before” date.

As far as the mechanics of the online shopping process go, Ocado are pretty typical. Orders below £75 are subject to a £5 delivery fee, which I find to be reasonable compared with the time saved in not going to the store personally. The delivery slots are quite extensive, stretching from early morning up to around 9pm, 6 days a week, and there are usually enough available that you could get an order delivered in two days. The delivery slots are one hour each, although the drivers have been known to arrive half an hour early or a few minutes late.

Some nice touches:

• The web interface highlights “environmentally friendly slots” where the van is already in your area.
• The groceries are packed in colour-coded bags which tell you whether their contents need to go in the cupboard, refridgerator or freezer. Although this has caused some debate in our house as Dana reckons they get it wrong sometimes!

The web interface itself is quite easy to use. It stores all your previous orders and uses that to remind you about things you may have forgotten — items you regularly order but haven’t this time. Special deals are clearly marked, searching for items works fairly well, and it’s generally sensible to navigate. It’s handy at the start of the week to be able to book a delivery of the essentials for the end of the week, yet still be able to modify the order right up until 4pm the day before, without losing the delivery slot.

Most items in the web interface have complete descriptions of their ingredients, with many vegetarian products and even a few vegan products being marked as such. The only issue we’ve had is perhaps more to do with the market that Waitrose aims itself at: we’ve occasionally not paid enough attention to the quantites of certain items and ended up with a very small amount of a “luxury” version of something. For example, a half loaf of bread of some brand that costs as much as a full loaf of the usual.

In conclusion I have almost nothing but praise for Ocado. On my first order things went wrong, but they went out of their way to put it right and that’s good customer service. Other than that they do what they say they will, sometimes more. Some people will be put off because of the perceived price of Waitrose goods, but personally I think that buying the really cheap food is a false economy that does no good to yourself or to the suppliers. Oh, and I am not associated with Waitrose or Ocado in any way other than being a happy customer!

If anyone should be interested in becoming an Ocado customer do let me know as I can refer you. That will give you a £15 off voucher on a purchase of £75, and if you use it then we get a £5 off voucher too.

Sainsbury’s ^

Even though we were perfectly happy with Ocado, we decided to try out Sainsbury’s as well just for a bit of a change.

To begin with it went fairly well. The website was not quite as easy to navigate as Ocado’s, and the order process was not quite as smooth. The delivery slots were two hour blocks and with not as much choice as Ocado, but still we got through booking the delivery easily enough.

On the night of the delivery, the van came almost an hour late. The driver was quite an old guy, who looked unwell. He explained that normally he has a colleague but tonight he was on his own, and it was making him run slowly. He had to borrow a torch from me in order that he could find our groceries. He also needed me to help carry them. I don’t mind helping out (I usually ask the Ocado drivers if they want a hand also), but it was clear that this man was not prepared for his work.

When he finally dumped all our groceries into the hallway it soon became clear that something had gone very wrong. Half the things we’d asked for had not been delivered, and we had lots of items we hadn’t asked for. In these situations you are supposed to document everything as the receipt you are given has to be signed, but the delivery guy kept trying to rush us along saying he had to get going. In the end I noted down some obvious mistakes and then wrote something like “delivery is incomplete” and signed that. That turned out to be a mistake also.

We spent something like 90 minutes going through what was delivered compared with what was ordered. I worked out that over £40 of goods were missing, which represented more than half the total value of the order! I attempted to call customer services to report this, but they had me on hold for ages at my own expense. In the end I wrote an email stating what had happened and that I expected a refund of the missing goods plus the delivery charge.

Days went by and I heard nothing. Then I received an automated email from them crediting me for the specific goods I had written down on the original receipt as being missing. No word about the large number of other items, nor the delivery charge.

In the end I had to make several calls at my own expense over a span of something like 2 weeks to get refunded for the goods that did not get delivered. Despite me mentioning that it was my first order and I wasn’t very impressed with the service, they did not offer any kind of sweetener to tempt me to stay with them. Needless to say I have not made another order with Sainsbury’s and probably never will.