To think Ocado are on their way out?

[AlternativePerspective]

They treated many of their customers shockingly during the pandemic. Broke the app and haven’t brought it back, and I have been told there is no timeframe as to when it will be brought back, they roll out a boiler template that it’s gradually going to be rolled out to a small selection of customers to ensure it works.

This is the only online only supermarket, and they’re the one who have failed the most spectacularly.

M&S are supposed to be online with them from Monday but with no app for many people shopping with them won’t be an easy thing to do so they won’t bother. Added to which M&S are looking to cut their costs anyway.

I speculated to my DP the other day that I will be surprised if Ocado are still around in a year’s time.

It’s a shame. They used to be a flagship online shop, now they’re the worst online supermarket.

@Newdaynewname1

I strongly suspect Ocado prioritised high spending smart pass customers, gave them a slot every week, and the rest had to battle for slots waiting and refreshing the website for hours. I can't forgive them to have treated me like that. of course they did. what else would they do? They prioritised people heavily depending on them, as measured by spend and regularity (which is the data they have). We order weekly, close to minimal spend, and had slots every 10 days during lockdown, which is fine.

Well, that makes sense. I could not possibly depend on Ocado with bi-weekly deliveries and spending £100+ each time. Makes total sense.

Nah. I think they'll be fine.

I'm excited for the change to M&S because I like lots of their products.

Had the app back for all of two days. Now back to this.
Anytime Smart pass holder btw.

I am a loyal customer of ocado, have been since their inception, and had wonderful service over the lockdown.

But I can't stand M&S food apart from their sandwiches, all the packaging, lack of organic produce, the disgusting plastic ready meals. Ir reminds me of hospital food, and not in a good way. It is not for me at all. So from next week I won't be shopping with ocado anymore.

I will be sad actually, and wish it is was different, but I will take this moment to overhaul my shopping habits completely and buying from the farmshop from now on. It is the kick I needed to shop from sustainable local farms now I haven't got the convenience of Waitrose deliveries so easily any longer.

I thought the app was up and running for everybody? It works for me.

Oh, I envy your blissful ignorance. This is what I'm getting today. (SmartPass customer for over a decade!)

I can’t stand M&S food either. Plastic food

But I’ll still use Ocado, there seems to be a lot of Ocado essential stuff

I'm a long term smart pass customer, I have deliveries whenever I need them now but still don't have the app switched back on.

I prefer the app.

@LBOCS2

We got Ocado deliveries throughout lockdown - like others, we've been smartpass customers for years and do the bulk of our shopping there for a family of 5 so our spend is quite high. We were able to get deliveries every ten days to start with and now we're back to every couple of days I think.

The thing is, during lockdown ALL the supermarket deliveries had to prioritise as none of them could service the demand they were facing. All of them (rightly) went with high priority customers first and then beyond that it was up to them; many other companies also prioritised existing customers over new ones so I'm not sure why Ocado is particularly being vilified for it?

I still don't have the app working which is a bit irritating - but you can't have everything 😁

Because I was an existing customer for 7 years with bi-weekly deliveries and did not get prioritized! Obviously I could not sign up with a new supermarket either.

@slipperyeel

Their app has been back for a while, maybe just for smartpass customers

I’m a smart pass customer. App not working for me....

I've had a weekly delivery as usual throughout since March, very few subs or missing items considering, and the app has been working for weeks now 🤷🏻‍♀️

I got a few deliveries from them during lockdown. It wasn't that easy that I think understandable if they were prioritising people on the shielding list. I'm definitely going to start using them more now that they will be delivering Marks & Spencer's products.

@Twatalert

"Ocado cannot possibly know who is an occasional customer or who gets all their stuff from Ocado"

They certainly can... they will be number crunching like mad in the background, and will easily be able to tell from shopping patterns, basket size/composition etc exactly who is getting most of their shopping, and who does an occasional top up. They won't get it 100% right, but their data analysis will be hugely sophisticated and they will be able to segment their customer base very accurately in this way.

App is working for me. No problems during lockdown and they've always been reliable.

Ocado's huge selling point their much more hygienic purpose built warehouses.
I'm prepared to give the M&S brand a go. In the years before Waitrose existed, M&S was the top food supermarket so I'm not worried about quality.

I also see they are setting up to sell M&S clothing so I'll be interested to see how that develops.

Friendsoftheearth, M&S have been working on their organic range, and it should be replacing like for like Waitrose products with things like fruit and veg. Ocado have also been increasing their organic range, so I'm sticking with them for now.

I love them and I can't see myself ever switching from them.

All supermarkets had issues in the first couple of months of lockdown it's a bit unfair to single them out. I only noticed the issues with Ocado because they are the only ones I use.

The App has been working for me for weeks not and I got weekly (although at one point it was every 10 days) deliveries throughout. Admittedly we've been with them for 10 years and do about 80-90% of our shopping with them so perhaps I did get prioritised for that. But, if you can't cope with unprecedented demand and have to prioritise, it's decent business sense to prioritise those that are most loyal, least likely to switch and make them the most money.

They are so much better than the others I find because:

• their App is brilliant. So easy to add one-click items as and when you remember something you need. As opposed to opening and editing an entire order.
• I very, very rarely get substitutions - really only since lockdown. The substitutions are always sensible when they do happen.
• The drivers are always brilliant
• Their customer service (on the very few times I've had to contact them) is great
• I got 4 free toblerones recently and I'm easily bought with free chocolate

I expect the delivery companies are expecting there to be a lot of losing of old customers and gaining of new ones due to the lockdown.

As I couldn’t get deliveries regularly from my normal supermarket, I was swapping between four different ones. Many people will have tried out different delivery services and switch.

It is probably a good time for them to switch from Waitrose to M&S to fit in with customers changing anyway.

Ocado doesn't work for us.

£6.50 for a delivery slot - daylight robbery.

I'm fine with Tesco and Waitrose click and collect, thank you.

Couldn't give a damn about using an app, I use Tesco and Waitrose websites for our orders, absolutely fine.

And I'll always resent the fact that they refused us an Ocado account during lockdown, when Tesco and Waitrose gave us one immediately.

Ocado can swivel. 🖕

Been great for us throughout lockdown, weekly deliveries, no cancellations, all on time. Products usually all fine. We are totally happy. I think they have just prioritised keeping their higher paying customers. (If the app isn’t using just go online?)

They've never even reached most of Scotland in the first place so can't be on their way out as they've never been "in".

Crossed you, Fuss!

But, Friendsoftheearth only a portion of the produce will be M&S stuff - replacing Waitrose. The vast majority of items will remain the same, all the usual brands, organic and otherwise.

Over lockdown I reverted to a regular veg box, and get most fish, cheese, bread from other sources. I'm not keen on M&S food - much of it seems sterile to me, produced more for shelf prettiness than taste - but there's no way I'm giving up the convenience, efficacy and familiarity of Ocado for other stuff. Not to speak of their generally clean, helpful, polite drivers.

Besides, I wouldn't want food picked from some of my nearest supermarkets - much prefer the warehouse model.

I think you'd still love them if you were a regular high spending customer as you would have had no issue getting slots, access to the app etc. For other people, not so much.

The hours of queue waiting and the changes they made almost weekly to who got access etc was very poor decisions making on their part. For me the question is will the removal of Waitrose goods, to be replaced with M&S, mean customers will leave them.

I used them a lot for years but I am not one bit interested in M&S rank, overpriced overprocessed food.

That is not true. Ocado cannot possibly know who is an occasional customer or who gets all their stuff from Ocado.

Of course they know, they have all the technology in place to know exactly who buys what and how often, and can tell a lot about you based on what you buy (much like other stores know by using their store loyalty card information).

It's unfortunate you didn't get prioritised but they only had a certain amount of capacity and had to prioritise those who are the most loyal customers - having a Smart Pass in this case. Obviously they would do that. I live on my own too and the Smart Pass is about £8.99 a month. As I don't have a car, I think it's great value personally. I do use them for other stuff like cat litter too so that pushes my spend up and makes weekly deliveries feasible.

marsha The ocado brand is not great, I will warn you now and nothing like the Waitrose quality. I use so many different brands that are not linked even to Waitrose, we like so many different things like method cleaning, Duchy range, Strong roots range, biona etc. I buy some of Waitrose own brand things, but not much really. Yeo Valley milk, butter, cream etc real staples we use every day -and all the rest, none of our normal shopping will be available anymore. That is my biggest issue.

I would have to change my entire family's tastes for each and every meal, compromise my wish to eat organically and choose sustainable products. Ocado have a small organic range available but it doesn't taste very nice, and the choice (between M&S and Ocado only) is going to be so limited.