To wish people wouldn't keep going on about Ocado?

[EricNorthmansmistress]

How wonderful if you can afford it, but seriously, mysupermarket.com says my typical weekly shop would be £17 more with Ocado! That's £68 a month! That's just not feasible for most people.

Yup.

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/jul/14/should-we-all-shop-waitrose#start-of- comments

And another thing...they do Lemon and Lavender cupcakes...which frankly are divine!

I DONT like their sandwiches though!

Except for their ham and cheese baguette!

I went into there today and a member of staff came over and said "Hi, your baby dropped her sock yesterday, here you go" and handed me the sock

That was the point I realised I go in there to much

well, Ocado acts like all the other on-line food retailers should, but don't. People rave about it as we've got used to shit service.

I use Ocado because ds2 has a dairy allergy and I can get lots of dairy free stuff and lots of dairy substitutes that Tesco don't stock. Half the time you order with Tesco and a good proportion of the stuff ordered is not available. They then either come with useless substitutes (often containing dairy - so no good for us) and we have to send the substitutes back and go down to the store to get the remainder of the shopping anyway , which kind of defeats the point!

They also do a better range of organic meat than Tesco (I'm veggie, but my ds's eat meat, however, I refuse to buy them intensively reared meat) and they do a better range of veggie and more importantly, vegan stuff too.

If you wait until you get your 15% off voucher each week or two, then Ocado is not cripplingly expensive. They also have some good deals. Earlier this week I spent about £110 with them on a pretty standard shop, and received £13.50 off with a voucher and managed also £15 off with special deals just by choosing carefully.
I heart Ocado. I wouldn't buy shares in them though as I think the fab service is based on an unsustainable business model (plus their contract to supply Waitrose groceries will run out one day).

it's a shame that in this case being good doesn't mean being profitable.

It will be, surely?

domesticslattern - the City is looking very hard at the £1 billion price tag attached to Ocado and reports I have read suggest they think it is really worth only 40 - 50% of the price the founders are asking for the business in the upcoming IPO flotation.

Only a few think it is worth as much as the founders are asking. The Guardian has a nice summary on the IPO.

At Tesco today I was pointed to the lady we tend to avoid

On first visit ds3 (he has asd so asks the same qquestions) did his usual 'do you know my name' act adn she just gave him horrid looks

Last time, she was scanniong our food whilst complaining to her colleague that Tesco are shite to work for and she thought she had an infectious eye consition but there was no piont telling THEM; she then sneezed over our shopping (we'd ahve complained by line for customer services is looong)

Today I was unpacking my absket one handedly whilst grabbing onto trying-to-run ds4 and she beckoned over her mate with a large trolley full and satrted unloading it on the conveyor in front of me!!!!!! Far from an apology she didn't even look, just started chatting.

Dos Tesco, Dos ASda after crap on here this week, tomorrow it's butchers / grocers and Sainsbo for the rest.

I'm with the Ocado / Waitrose fans, I'm afraid. I went to do a Sainsburys shop on Saturday, then found I could get more for the same money from Waitrose. We don't get Ocado in Edinburgh, but have two branches of Waitrose.

There is a strange sort of inverse snobbery aimed at Ocado and Waitrose, like you're some sort of toff if you shop there! I'm not rich by any means, but appreciate good quality and ethically sourced food. They do some good bargains if you shop carefully.

I have used all the online grocery services, but Tesco isn't great quality, and Asda have a bad habit of pre-authorising a payment for the estimated amount, then taking the full payment, but the estimate doesn't bounce back into your account for a week. This is really annoying and inconvenient for a mum on maternity leave without much money, so I cancelled my account with them.

I'm very puzzled that someone got offended by a delivery driver eating chips?! He's entitled to a lunch break!

I have a 5 month old baby and have not been to the supermarket in 5 months. If my husband has to work late or be out at the weekend, it's a tough day, BUT, if the Ocado man/woman rang and told me they couldn't bring groceries anymore, that would be it, I'd go into melt down!!

Where do they get their staff - how can that many thoroughly pleasant people work in one place. Food is good quality, although agree, not always the cheapest, but service is great and reliable. My husband does realise that if it was between the Ocado man and him, he'd have a fight on his hands!

I tried Ocado once and found it more expensive even though I ordered a lot of the essential range. Also I think if you cook things from scratch they don't seem to have as big a range of ingredient type things as the other supermarkets.
Sainsbury's are the worst though. I've used them about 5 times and each time either half the shopping was missing or substitutions were made that we weren't told about or they were late.
I've never had a problem with Tesco.

I very rarely do internet shopping and if I do it's usually Sainsburys. But I had to comment because of LongTallJosies first comment. I read it as And ocado vegetables are frequently immature, rather than miniature. I was all as to how vegetables can be immature!

i think you have to be a "savvy" ocado shopper if you just buy willy nilly it will cost you a hell of a lot more, if you shop from the special offers, price matched items and use the vouchers they often send you it can end up being very reasonable and competitive.

they also are excellent at refunding as one poster said, i ordered a smallish gammon joint from them which had a price cap dependent on weight of around £4, for some reason whoever was packing sent me a HUGE gammon joint priced at £13, i pointed out this was way about the max weight i ordered and i got the whole thing for free. another time something leaked and a bag of food got wet (packaging etc) but it was still edible, the refunded all the items that got wet no question asked.

I cannot remember the last time I had to throw fruit or veg away since we've had Ocado delivering. It was something that happened every week with Tesco or Sainsbury's.

The Tesco Value range is not good, and neither is the Sainsbury's Basic. I worked my way through a lot of these products and they were simply not things I would buy a second time.

The Waitrose Essentials range is really good - you just don't feel like you're getting a 'value' product - you get a good product.

As for meat and fish, well, there is no competition. Yes, it is more expensive, but I would rather pay a bit more (and maybe have less of it) for good, free-range meat that tastes nice and hasn't been intensively farmed.

Both DH and I have signed up to Ocado and we do a weekly shop with them. For a couple of weeks I will log in as me, by which time DH will have received a 15% off voucher. So, I spend the next couple of weeks logging in as him, and then the voucher comes to me.

And as for service... I have had Tesco drivers ranting at me when we asked for the no-shopping-bag (i.e. green) option - saying that 'it's all well in good for them in the office to come up with these ideas, they're not the ones who have to do the deliveries, yada, yada'....

Ocado drivers and lovely and just get on with it - always a pleasure to deal with.

Yet another vote for Ocado and for me I appreciate their food policies especially as it relates to their meat. I don't like to eat factory farmed meat so the fact that even their every day range conforms to high animal welfare standards makes it cheaper than buying organic meat from other supermarkets.
I also love the fact that in the last 8 weeks I've had one substitute and they texted me about it before hand so I had time to think about whether or not I wanted it.

I have to ask though - where are you all getting your vouchers from? I got a voucher off my first shop but I've not seen any since!

CeeCee - they seem to give vouchers if they haven't heard from you in a couple of weeks - they will email you with a code.

This is why both DH and I signed up, so that we take it in turns to be the one who logs on and does the shop (well, I always do the shop, but swap btw logging on as me and as him). They then don't see me logging on for a couple of weeks and voila - a 15% off voucher! Does that make sense?

I am sure they will wise up to this soon enough, given that we get deliveries to the same address every week, but until then it works well. By the way, it is 15% off if you spend over £75, which may or may not work for you.

I tend to only do an Ocado Delivery once every 3 to 4 weeks and often get a voucher sent to me just before i am doing another one.

5DollarShake, that is a good idea will have to get DH to sign up so we can both do it!

I LOVE Ocado

it is fab and it is better

i ahve moved house to a new area.... i used to have 2 waitrose stores within a 5 min drive and at least 5 stores within 15 mins...

now my nearest store os an hour way so i love it that my waitrose food comes to me.

I also have a good 20+ min drive to a supermarket (sainsburys which i dont like)

i LOVE the fact that they dont use caged hens at all in any own brand chicken / egg product and they only sell british pork.

I feel VERY strongly about caged animals (esp pigs and hens) and i like to know that my shopping does not support that vile industry at all.

oh and on my last ocado shop (which i then put into tesco) i saved pounds (not pennies) by using ocado

then theres the fact that their drivers are nice and friendly and helpful
arrive on time... and they even have free delivery slots so delivery doesnt cost me a penny either

I joined the ocado shopping gang last week it is BRILL!

Can't wait for this week's order tomorrow and free bottle of vino!

I love Ocado too (Sorry OP). Even more so this week as I won £100 Ocado vouchers last week which I used to have a delivery yesterday.

I loved Ocado, too...... great products, great reliability, cost effective compared to the physical trip to market with all the 'impulse buying' that goes with it. I simply loved 'em.... until today, that is....... More or less overnight, the blasted company has reduced available delivery slots for my area from pretty much every day & multi slots within the day (pattern as it has been for several years) to only offering a couple of days in a FORTNIGHT!! And with the most inconvenient time slots within those days. Blinking nuisance!! And this, as they are about to float on Stock Exchange - well, I suppose we poor ole customers now know where we will lie in the pecking order, relative to Shareholder Value

OMG RuralLass
I have just checked too (as a result of your post) and they have also taken away a considerable chunk of my potential delivery slots...
(although there are still (even if limited) options 6 days a week)

no more monday mornings, and lots of random blocks removed during most days as well

luckily the slots I normally use are still there but even so, GRRRRR