Reasonable failure rate for online supermarket shop

[Fluffsmum]

What do you expect to be a reasonable failure rate for your online supermarket shop. As in not turning up, being cancelled, damaged broken stuff (e.g. not the food not being in stock).

There's obviously a back story to this, but I want to know if I'm expecting too much before I give more info.

Another for Ocado. Never late, only one minor substitution in god knows how many shops.
Oh and the delivery people are always lovely!

In three years of weekly online shops with Tesco none of those things happened. I think they were late once but called to apologise. Subs were usually sensible (except the time I ordered a bayonet light bulb and they brought a screw-in one - they’re not interchangeable!).

I use Tesco and find it quite reliable with relatively few substitutions.

I think it will depend on the day of the week and time of your order a lot of the time. I find that a slot late on a Monday will generally be at the earlier part of the slot or delivered early (with notice) but in a busier slot it won’t be as reliable.

I shop mostly with Asda because they only have a £25 minimum spend which is ideal for me when I don't always need a big shop (only shopping for myself and pre-school son). In 4 years I've only had one failure to show up, this screwed me up quite a bit and I was so cheesed off that I didn't use them again for almost 2 months. However since that one time, I've never had issues with turning up and find that actually they're often early/right at the beginning of their delivery slot so that's good.
I am getting sick of the amount of substitutes or out of stock items with each shop though. Every single time there's at least 3-4 things that are either substituted or just straight up not available, and the substitutes are often ridiculous. This week I ordered a ready prepped casserole veg bag and instead they sent me a bag of frozen peas. The strangest I've had was recently when I ordered some fresh pasta; I ordered a bag of spaghetti and a bag of fusilli, I checked my subs before order came and it said spaghetti had to be subbed for the fusilli, but the fusilli said it had to be subbed for spaghetti . So it was all good as I got both the pastas I ordered, but seriously why did they sub them both for the other😂😂

Unless i'm reading the OP wrong, this isn't about substitutions which people are responding with, it's about problems with the delivery itself
(e.g. not the food not being in stock)

I've done online shops with Morrison's, Tesco, Asda and Iceland. Iceland once turned up late but the driver was apologetic and said there had been a crash. Fair enough. I don't regularly order from any of them to build up a pattern though (apart from substitutions). Never ever had one not turn up. I'd expect a full refund and a token gift voucher if that happened once, happened again I wouldn't shop there again.

I find tesco good with thoughtful substitutions. Waitrose OK but substitutions not very good

Ocado - awful. Things thrown in bags and every delivery had something broken or squashed or leaking - usually cream or some type of cleaning product. Got fed up of the delivery driver turning up with no substitution offered for a very normal brown loaf of bread - really? No other brown bread in the whole warehouse?

I’ve used Ocado a couple of times the past couple of years and they were very good, on time and only one substitution I think which was fine. Last few months I’ve been using Sainsbury’s and they are always on time, drivers are lovely and carry my shopping to my kitchen. There has been 1 or 2 substitutes each time but always acceptable and if the substitute is more expensive only charged at the original product price. The drivers always check my eggs to make sure not broken and one week one egg was cracked, but I kept the box and was refunded the price of the whole box. They will take back any subs that you don’t want and always email me details of the subs before delivery.

We order from Tesco and they have always been really good. Once they were unable to deliver and gave us a £10 voucher before we even had a chance to complain. I think we just had to go and pick it up from the shop instead so no trouble really.

Ok, that's great thanks. Sounds like I'm not expecting too much then.

We shop with Asda, have for around 18months, averaging monthly deliveries at the least. Last year was fine (good in fact) until Christmas. At Christmas they delivered an order completely wrong (not mine) and didn't deliver our Christmas shop at all, leaving us without stuff at Christmas. Then this year there's been 2 late (by more than 30minutes) deliveries, 1 where the eggs and washing up liquid had exploded over everything else and 2 that were cancelled.

Then this weekend-

Delivery scheduled for Saturday evening 5-6, 7pm it hadn't arrived so I rang them to be told it was on its way. It never arrived and in the morning had been cancelled. Rescheduled for Monday, got cancelled, rescheduled for this morning and it arrives, then the driver left with half the shop on the van. I rang when I realised but they said he couldn't come back.

I've had close to £100 in vouchers, free delivery etc but to be honest, I just want my food to come when I order it! I'm going to swap.

After using Sainsbury's for 4 or 5 years, in separate incidents, I've had one broken egg and one leaking bottle of washing liquid. Both refunded (and kept), plus several items that had washing liquid on them, but not in any way spoiled, so could be kept. All done at the door by the driver.

£100 over the year, not this weekend (though I have month of free deliveries and a £10 voucher).

We use Ocado. Never had an order not turn up, very rarely get subs due to their stock control, and they refund without quibble if something is damaged (had a few issues with bread).

I'd say they are 99.5% reliable, which is why we've used them for around 5/6 years.

Well clearly Asda have massively let you down. I'd spend the vouchers then vote with your feet and use a different shop!

Im a Tesco regular user. Reliable, good quality fruit and veg, few substitutions.
Used to use Asda, they cancelled order once but still took payment, took a while to get it back. I tried them a few weeks ago for a change and the driver literally threw the shopping at me!
Tesco for me, but Ocado and Morrisons are good

We use Tesco and have probably averaged 2-3 deliveries a month for 5 years or so and I can count on one hand the number of issues, a couple of late deliveries and broken eggs a couple of times. Usually the subs are sensible but I've had the occasional one that's been odd but I just send it back.

I will never shop with Asda online again. Ocado all the way.

I've been using online shopping for years and Tesco have never let me down, never even been late, and they very rarely have to substitute things.

Asda however...I think they didn't turn up at all once, were late a few times, brought things that were out of date or damaged, and substituted half the shopping, often with bizarre replacements.

I stopped giving them any more chances quite a while back.

I'd be willing to forgive eg a van breaking down, that can happen to anyone. But when the order is cancelled without explanation then even one cancellation would be too many.

I have used Sainsburys at least weekly for the past 10 years or so.
They have been late a handful of times in that time and I have never had a cancellation (possibly once in heavy snow).
There are usually 1-2 substitutions depending on when the delivery is - late on a Friday or Saturday is usually worst.
Very rarely is something damaged or spilt.
The drivers are almost always polite and friendly and will take back unwanted subs or damaged items right away.
The only down sides are fruit, like strawberries or bananas, where the quality is pretty unreliable and I have stopped ordering it online and chickens where I always seem to get a random size rather than the one I ordered.

I’ve had quite a few issues with damaged items from Ocado. I quite frequently, perhaps every three shops, have to request a refund. I had broken eggs three weeks in a row a few months ago, and the worst was when a bottle of drain unblocker broke and leaked all over several bags of shopping as well as getting all over DH’s hands. I’ve found quite often than plastic packaged items break, which seems to have something to do with the way they pack the bags (or, rather, chuck everything in randomly).

Don't have Ocado in the area of UK I live. Sainsbury's got so bad for unavailable items that I switched to Tesco and find them so much better. Deliveries on time and not many missing or substituted items.

Looks like it's area specific then. We used to use Tesco where we used to live but often cancelled/ didn't turn up. So we switched to ocado. When we first moved here ocado didn't deliver so we moved to asda. I'll be moving again now though.

In just over a year of online ordering with Sainsbury’s I’ve had one item missing (refunded within 48hrs), and about once a month or so there is an item substituted or with a shorter date on it. To me this is perfectly reasonable, the delivery comes from the store I would be going myself to so even if I was in store I would probably end up with the same scenario. Deliveries have never been late and are frequently early by a few hours, I live at the end of town and the drivers pass by my house on their way to the next town so often phone to see if I am available to take it early rather than doing it on their way back, this suits me fine as it means I’m getting a slot which would have been over £5 for as little as £2.

I use Ocado or Waitrose, no complaints about either, good with substitutes and their websites easy to use. Sometimes get a top up from Iceland but they don't substitute or let you know in advance that they're out of stock which is annoying.

Morrison's & Ocado, always turn up on time, never miss in bad weather, few if any substitutions. Sainsbury's turn up on time one week, next week an hour late, lots of substitutions.

Tesco have never failed to deliver. In one case the van broke down and the driver delivered in his own car.

Ocado was a no show the first time I tried it and customer services were beyond hopeless, hence me not using them.