to bin Ocado after 14 years

[SeedyM]

Have used Ocado more or less weekly for 14 years and until now been impressed with their service, products and the way customer services handle problems.
The last few months I've noticed a few duplicates and extra items from items in my regular orders. I've put it down to me not checking properly what I'm doing. This week I made a point of checking carefully what was in my trolley just before checkout. I didn't however check my emailed receipt. I received double the amount of cucumbers, butter, broccoli and eggs; and sweetcorn, yoghurts, and chocolate that I didn't want. It's £17.42 worth of stuff.
There seems to me to be a software issue. I've obviously been stupid not checking the emailed receipt but diligently removed what I didn't require and checked out. But... their customer services team have told me that it's my problem and the only items they will refund are the non-perishable items that the driver can pick up. Which is the opposite from logical as they're the items I am able to use at some point.
I'm so disappointed with them. Has anyone else had similar issues? Am I doing something daft that I just can't see? Would you change to a different supermarket?

I've had this happen and usually the delivery driver will take back any items? They tried to deliver me 14 packs of banana and 21 sticks of butter 🙈

The driver was really understanding and said it happens quite regularly, the worst being 48 cucumbers lol

Frustrating when it's fresh things aswell, if it was stuff we'd use in the future that I can chuck in the cupboard I wouldn't worry too much.

I used to use Ocado but their packing is so bad every order resulted in something leaking or broken. Did benefit a bit once when they cocked up our neighbour's order in a spectacular manner and told them to just keep everything.

Waitrose however, give us amazing service and fantastic quality. Am very, very happy with them and with Tesco too to be fair.

I'm having issues with Ocado too. Their drivers nearly always turn up early. Once over summer a driver phoned to say he was at my house (at least 30 minutes early) and would leave the stuff outside. When I arrived home I found him sitting in his van around the corner anyway, so he could have waited for me!

Also for the past few months almost every delivery has had something missing, often a few things, so my routine is to unpack and then go and request my refund. Perhaps that's another kind of software issue?

I'm going to switch to Sainsbury's when my pass is up (because they give out freebies on their site quite a lot) and then maybe give Ocado another try when they start with M&S.

My smart pass is £2.99 a month?

I wish I could shop waitrose and afford ocado!

Unless you're buying gold leaf encrusted artichoke hearts (no idea if that's a thing) they're competitively priced, to be fair. Ocado is cheaper for some of our regular items than Sainsbury's.

Happened to me once when ds and i both accessed from different pcs or on mobile app or something
Brendasumbrella
I get loads of freebies from Ocado.

I had issues for the first time this weekend. A booked delivery totally disappeared & when I went to rebook the next day was now full.
I was also sure that I didn’t add 5 x crates of bottled water to my order! Must have been a glitch with the app

A positive change (I think) is that they used to put one item per carrier bag, but now they stuff them so full they are splitting and open stuff is leaking - no happy medium!!

Not had those issues no and I find Cs very good tbh... Op did you escalate or say you wanted to speak to someone else about this?

I'm sure they would chuck a voucher your way and more if you told them what you have told us.

I've barely had a substitution in 5 years, very rare missing items. Drivers usually v good, food packed nicely...

I remember being shocked by waitrose slops after ocado!!

I get loads of freebies from Ocado.

I get offered their free magazine, that's all

Maybe these things vary by location?

I've been a customer for a long, long time. I pay for a delivery pass. Every so often they email to say the price is going up a lot, so I ring or email to cancel and they immediately offer me the same price as I was paying, or similar. Service has always been good. I haven't had any problems over than the odd niggle.

However:

1. Last couple of orders I've placed - no flash sales!
2. I've just had an email about a 50% off sale. Normally there's a lot of branded stuff there that's of no interest to me at all. This time there were lots and lots of Waitrose branded bags of pasta. Worrying, if this is the start of offloading Waitrose food.
3. I buy mostly Ocado own brand or Waitrose own brand. Other brands only if they're cheaper than own brand. I rarely go to M&S. My impression is their food is more expensive and overpackaged. That won't appeal to me.

Not at all sure I'll still be a customer this time next year.

BrendasUmbrella

Do you leave reviews of products? Every so often i get an email from ocado offering me 4 or 5 products to review. I also got a can of posh coke last week on checkout as well.

Smart Passes are almost always negotiable. Mine is £1.99 but currently free for another 2 months. Email them and tell them its more than you budgeted for, you wish to cancel.

I'm a Star Reviewer so get lots of free stuff, but I'm still binning them after Christmas because I'm not a fan of M&S food. I shall move to Waitrose instead.

Yes I have had the random duplicates or things added to order not turning up several times too.

The thing is, if you need reliability and convenience, they're the only online shop that was built to be an online delivery service. I used to use others (Sainsburys etc) regularly and they were nowhere near the ease of Ocado. Short slots available soon, realistic idea of stock levels, etc. I've hardly ever had a substitution or missing item compared to Sainsburys etc.
There are downsides - I hate that you can't get individual fresh veg (one pepper, one courgette etc), it's definitely more expensive than if I just went to a Tescos. Stuff is often squashed but you get refunded.

I don't use it as a full replacement of other supermarkets but it is really useful. I'll be interested to see how it does with M&S.

brufffin I only leave reviews when I'm displeased about something... I guess that's where I've been going wrong

To be fair I do like lots of their products, I'll leave some nice reviews and see if that gets me anywhere lol

I had this. Do you use their ‘lists’ function? They just changed it and anything you’ve already added to your basket not through a list now doesn’t show up. So DH uses the last of the e.g. frozen chips, adds some to basket. I put an order and go down the list of food we buy. Normally it would have shown up as 1 frozen chips already in basket, but in the new app version it doesn’t. So I add one to the basket. And then when I look at the trolley it shows one bag of chips under ‘food list’. Unless I check carefully I don’t see there’s another identical bag of chips listed at the bottom under ‘freezer’.
This gets particularly fun if there’s a special offer. I wanted to buy 2 packs of 9 toilet rolls. Now I have 36 toilet rolls. We live in a small flat!

YANBU

I only signed up for them a few months ago and presumed that there were no delivery charges as long as you spent over a certain amount. But now have realised that my trial will be coming to an end soon and so will have to pay for this smart pass.

Have found Ocado quite meh really, there have often been substitutions or just not been able to supply something and there was one shop where they missed a dozen or so items. I did get it refunded but it was so annoying as I was planning to cook a recipe so needed specific ingredients

Think am going to stick with Sainsburys or Waitrose, not worth the extra cost for delivery, think with Waitrose minimum spend is around £50.

So long as I never have to do the big shop in an actual supermarket ever again!

I don’t like Ocado at all, I much prefer Tesco.

My delivery driver always carries all my bags to the door at once, with so many bags in each hand that a lot if the items end up squashed.

The packing of bags is really bad, with cakes and desserts ruined by being upside down, heavy bags of potatoes put on top of bread, lots of items squashed and ruined. I also find the fruit is often bruised, maybe due to the packing. Tesco’s is packed in store by a person so is much better. Shame, because I do like some of the Waitrose food, but do end up wasting some of it.

I have never paid for a delivery with Ocado. It’s easy to find £0 slots if you booked a few days ahead.

Time to look for at the alternatives, probably Morrison's. Shame, I've been loyal for over 10 years.

Ocado run Morrison’s home delivery.

I've noticed the Waitrose stuff disappearing

Me too! I will be switching to Waitrose delivery soon. It’s a shame as I liked Ocado and have been a customer for many years, but I’m so disappointed they’ve dropped Waitrose for M&S.

The service went down a lot. We have had missing items worth up to a 25 percent of the total, bruised fruit and veg, stuff about to expire, bananas so green they needed over a week to mature, this inedible when we need them. And it was more expensive than other shops. It was with while the quality was still good, not so much when it stopped being so.

I think it's more likely Waitrose are dropping Ocado now they've got their own home delivery service.

They had their delivery service before ocado, I used to use it, but our closest waitrose wasnt very big and the choice was fairly limited.

I used to get random double orders of stuff with them. I gave up Ocado after ten years after all those issues with them not supporting women’s rights and free speech last year wrt to the Adult human female billboards.

Waitrose have been great. Their website is a bit of pig to use but service, delivery and quality all excellent and they do it all without plastic bags if you like.