Ocado are suspending their reserved order system

[Neednewwellies]

I’ve been using Ocado for 12yrs. We pay extra for a reserved pass. A week or so ago they emailed to say existing customers were priority and especially those with a reserved slot. Made a thing about supporting loyalty etc. Now today I’ve received an email telling me that not only is the delivering expecting tomorrow not coming but they’ve decided to suspend the reserved slots and it’s every (wo)man for themselves. Of course, there’s no slot available for weeks.
I’m angry and worried. Why not continue to prioritise those who have a set slot. Surely adding those thousands into the traffic of people desperately trying to get a slot will just make the situation worse? As soon as this is over I’ll be leaving them. No way will I continue to pay extra when they’ve behaved like this. How can they leave it until the day before to drop this on us? £150 a week plus the monthly fast pass fee to be treated like this. I wouldn’t even mind if they were on twitter holding their hands up but they’ve gone silent.

@aragog have you managed to book anything else though? Wondering if it is blocking the rest? When click on reserved just takes back to main page.

I’m just so frustrated that I’m getting no information from them, had nothing as smart pass an no info about reserved slots. Email lists aren’t that hard to maintain.

I had the 14 day email too. We shop weekly so this means we will have to go into the shops now. They change their minds constantly. Why they don't just deliver to and allow access to the site for vulnerable and Anytime Smartpass holders I don't know.

Interesting how we all have different allowances.

Mine says one slot every 10 days.

Again anytime pass holder of several years.

Yes I got on yesterday. Hasn't had the follow up email to say it was my turn but I've been checking daily. Got on randomly yesterday evening. I have mine for being a smart pass holder. I am not in the most vulnerable government list. I am immunocompromised but they wouldn't know that.

My reserved wasn't there but I knew they'd been suspended anyway. There were a few slots available, including for today. Think there was one for today, a couple later in week and then pretty much full days of slots available for the week after.

I'm in Sheffield.

I guess different areas will have different availability.

Mine says every 7 days but the nearest slot is in 10.
As I had so many subs I’m not sure whether to bother though.

Crikeycrumbly, reserved spots dont work at the moment,
I thought no slots available until I pressed the calendar button but that is in 2 weeks.

There must be a lot of variables, ie smart pass, length of membership and which depot you are near. Dh works over the road to huge depot,

I am a Smartpass customer with a previous reserved slot, and haven’t received an email since last Friday when I was given a day-specific access for a priority queue. Would just like to know if I can expect this to repeat at all, otherwise we’ll need to make different plans.

@mooboy yep. I can't access any slots.

Interesting people are getting different emails. I pre booked slots before this all kicked off and my last one is on Monday. I got an email this morning saying it would be every 14 days from now on.

I’m an anytime smart pass/star reviewer customer of 10+ years. I’m very loyal to Ocado, I live rurally (east anglia) and simply cannot get the breadth of product they offer anywhere else. I would prefer a weekly slot but will make do with fortnightly and top up with fresh food locally.

I had an Ocado delivery yesterday
It will let me in to the site but they have no slots available at the moment. Possibly may be 14 days between slots
I’ve completed a basket of shopping so once I get a delivery slot I’m ready to go....

I am still getting weekly slots, but I've had to pay extra for them - only weekend available and I have a midweek smart pass.

The email says to start looking for slots on Monday and you will only see ones that fall within your allotted number of days.

I'm a smart pass member and it's almost back to normal for me this morning. No queue system, with the only restriction being 1 order per 7 days.

Pretty much the same here. I can have deliveries every 7 days too. I think it must be down to location vis a vis their delivery hubs. I live in a crowded bit of London.

Blog update

blog.ocado.com/?fbclid=IwAR231n-J24CJjlmbdlbCNEBGA6McQbgpClmeyFpNgqhCmH6DHUy3iAf-gGU

I did notice when doing my shopping on Ocado that their prices seem to have almost doubled and so did the price of my shop. Anyone else notice that?

I’m spending more, but there’s fewer offers. I think the only one I have seen is meats 3-for£10. Also, I’m doing one big shop, rather than going to a local store for a top-up during the week. I’m also buying toilet rolls and kitchen rolls, which I would normally get from Costco.

So overall my shop is double, but at least a third are extra I would normally buy elsewhere.

Nope, there just seem to be fewer offers.

Mine is double the normal costs too and is always makes me pause and wonder whether I'm over buying but I used to shop for 6 evening meals a week - I now shop for 21 meals a week for 4 people - the increase is huge! But we aren't spending money in pubs and restaurant. I have noticed an increase in the price of free range chicken...and often I have to buy the most expensive brands as they are all that is left.

Good point mooboy. We are buying a lot more meals than normal when most of would be out the house 5 days a week. (Plus wine)

Saving on all the random coffees etc though.

Between this and the move to M&S in September, I fear for Ocado's future. They have managed to piss off a very large proportion of their customers in how they have dealt with this.
Many were going to leave when the M&S tie in started anyway and I suspect many more will now follow.

We are going through 4 bags of coffee a week!

I had an email last night saying that I would now be invited to look for slots from Wednesday onwards (Smart pass anytime) but it doesn't say in the email, how regularly I will be able to get slots going forward. Some people have been told they'll now be able to look for a slot every 7,10 or 14 days but mine says nothing about the regularity of slots. Why are people getting such differing communication??

That you for the links. I am another pass holder that has received no communication. I had managed to book 2 deliveries in march - a long way in advance so they were both at the end of the month (1 for me, 1 for elderly mum) and then we have 1 booked next week (for mum) and I have not been able to book any others (weeks in advance or not). Those 3 spots across 2 months have taken hours to get booked, totally randomly (due to no communication apart from this thread). The communication from 3rd April is clear (at last).

It all seems so inefficient. Twice this week I've managed to get access to the site, but no slots so pointless.

Good God , I’ve just received my first email from Ocado about deliveries.

It says I can’t look for slots until Wednesday and then it will only show me available slots 4 days ahead of time.

There is no mention about only being about to have a slot 7/10 etc days apart.

On Tuesday morning I did somehow manage to get a slot for Friday 24th, 5:30-6:30am so my alarm better not fail.