To think Ocado with M&S is a bit pants?

[lemons888]

I've been a regular Ocado customer for 11 years. I'm trying to place an order this morning and am already really missing Waitrose - particularly the Essentials range, which offered really good value IMO.

Ocado is advertising some of the new M&S products as "great value" when they aren't. Take cucumbers for example - the M&S "great value" cucumber is 60p and the Ocado one right next to it is 45p. How does that make M&S great value, unless it's a significantly bigger cucumber (not clear from the website?)

I will miss the convenience of Ocado (including next day delivery and the easy to use website) but will be switching to Waitrose own delivery after this shop.

AIBU?

I had my first ocado/M&S delivery yesterday.

So much was missing, or sub

No nectarines or pittas in the whole warehouse????? I’m hoping it settles down. I do have a food hall nearby so can go and get M&S food, but there isn’t a waitrose anywhere near.

Did get the free Percy pugs though.

I think Ocado have the general technology advantage with their automated warehouse model, though that also means they can't add extra capacity in a simple "hire more humans" way. They generally score well for average completeness of orders, delivery timeliness etc. There's definitely a few Waitrose things that don't have great equivalents with M&S. I get more annoyed with Ocado not stocking mainstream branded items, as presumably the average Ocado shopper is only interested in thousands of artisan permutations of things.

@AlternativePerspective

According to people on twitter Ocado are now substituting the free Percy pigs saying they’re not available but substituting them with an item you then need to pay for.

I’ve had a look at the waitrose app, but the thing I don’t like about it is the fact that everything is in one section, so e.g. they have a fresh/chilled products section but it’s just pages and pages of products not broken down into e.g. meat/fish/veg etc so you have to scroll down loads and loads of products or do a search for what you want....

You only need to do that the first time though? I mark items I'll reorder as favourites and then subsequently load my favourites list for my next order. Or, after your first order, you can just load the contents of your previous trolley and amend as necessary?

The thing I don't find they do but will double check is export all your substitute/don't substitute preferences and previous notes for each item. 🌹

Had our second delivery from Ocado with M&S products and am very happy. I am definitely a cook and a foodie, although loathe cheese and can easily do a weekly shops at Marks. That being said I buy lots of ingredients online, I’d recommended somewhere like souschef.co.uk as I had been frustrated by Waitrose and Ocado not stocking things I needed for new recipes.

Have been with Ocado for years and mainly bought their own products or branded as I don’t rate Waitrose. Am surprised to hear such praise on here as I would have said they are shockingly bad quality and a pain i terms of limited ingredients, that being said I don’t buy any ‘interesting’ cheeses!

We had one sub and got our free bags of Percy pigs too. The meat, fish and other fresh produce have all been top quality but yes stock does seem to be an issue in these early stages.

All the Waitrose products I used to buy now have an M&S equivalent at the same price or lower.
I've been shopping for various bits in Lidl, and noticed that 2 things I buy a lot are cheaper (per 100g) at Ocado (new M&S products).

They pledged to replace 'each and every' WR line with an equivalent, so maybe things like specialist cheeses will come.

I was very sceptical about the move, but I've been pleasantly surprised. I don't buy a whole lot of meat, so haven't compared yet, but M&S often have a 3 for £10 on fish, which is great value. I hope that deal comes across.

I have also been an Ocado customer for a long time and for me it was the perfect mix - Waitrose products plus others, all coming fresh directly from a warehouse. I am going to give the new version of Ocado a try, but like others, I really don’t particularly like M&S food. Quite good fruit and vegetables but everything else is very unappealing to me.

I'm seeing a lot of ppl moaning recently about Ocado and Waitrose parting company and how much they loved Waitrose products..

Waitrose do home delivery and have done for at least seven years. Maybe use them?

Burnt - Waitrose don't deliver everywhere. That's the problem.

I’m surprised to hear about Waitrose delivery complaints. I’ve found them to be fantastic and have been ordering Waitrose deliveries for years now. The last time I ordered from Ocado there were a lot more substitutions than my usual Waitrose shop.

@Happynow001

Whoop! I've just received my Waitrose money off vouchers - first since before lockdown. £5 for every £50 spent in store and £10 for every £100 spent online - offer in conjunction with the MyWaitrose card. 🌹

I've got £10 off a £50 spend, wonder how they work out who gets what?

If it does not suit you. go elsewhere. Other home food delivery services are available.

Waitrose offer free delivery if you spend £60, which they intend to drop to £40 soon. I was an Ocado customer of many years but really don’t like the M&S food, it’s not as good quality as Waitrose.
I’ve just done an online Waitrose shop, look forward to enjoying my purchases again!

I've just gone back to Ocado after not being able to get a slot for months, I've been doing Sainsbury's click and collect and hating quality of the fruit and veg. I was annoyed that when I went to buy a new delivery pass they're not offering a mid week one, given I'm wfh that would have worked for me and been cheaper, presumably that's why it's not being offered.

I'm ambivalent about the whole Waitrose v M&S thing, Waitrose don't deliver here so that's not an option. M&S isn't somewhere I usually shop for food unless I'm passing its in the town centre here so not very handy for a weekly shop anyway.

@nosswith

If it does not suit you. go elsewhere. Other home food delivery services are available.

Well, I only have a choice between Ocado and Tesco. Nothing else!!!

@artisanparsnips thank you! just looked and yes the glass jar creme fraiche is there, just not for my booked delivery slot.

@Doodar

I've got £10 off a £50 spend, wonder how they work out who gets what?
Maybe you have a higher spend than me? I'm a single person household- I may ask them though!! 😁

If it does not suit you. go elsewhere. Other home food delivery services are available. If reading about it does not suit you, go elsewhere. Other threads are available.

Seriously I have no idea why people come on to these threads and make such snippy and frankly idiotic statements.

Fact here is that companies rely on their customers’ feedback in order to improve. If the feedback is not satisfactory then a company should be aware of the fact so that they can improve their service.

If people love Ocado then great. Although frankly I don’t quite understand why there is almost a cult-like devotion to them such as in the post above, but people are entitled to disagree with how they operate, and they are perfectly entitle to make that view publicly known.

I agree that Ocado with M&S is shite. I had started getting a lot of things on Ocado Zoom but now even the non-Waitrose produced products bag I liked (eg Vogel original bread) are out of stock.

As the UK's best known and biggest grocery delivery service, you'd imagine that Ocado would be one of the few companies in the country to be directly benefiting from the pandemic. Instead they seem to have completed sodded everything up in 2020, beginning with their woeful failure to provide most of their loyal customers with any deliveries at all during the spring. I don't know who the CEO is but they must be bricking themselves.

I'm not happy. Waitrose delivery here is terrible and there isn't a decent sized supermarket locally and I don't have a car so need to use online.

I need to be able to buy basic good quality ingredients without bankrupting myself - tinned toms/ cheese / meat/ frozen herbs etc.

M&S isn't going to cut it.

Think I'll have to go back to Tesco or Sains.

@AuntImmortelle

I swapped from Ocado to Waitrose delivery over a year ago when they hiked up the smart pass renewal price and wouldn't give me a reasonable deal after having shopped with them since they opened 12 or so years ago.

My Waitrose delivery actually comes from a warehouse in Coulsdon so not my local Waitrose at all. It's fab. Never had a problem. Hour slots; free; on time; sensible substitutions if you've ticked the box to allow them. Can't believe I stuck with Ocado and paid a bloody fortune annually for the privilege!

Anyway reading the shit storm that had been Ocado over lockdown I'm amazed people are still using them. I had a delivery weekly from Waitrose all through lockdown anyway.

But I would actually prefer if you mostly stay with Ocado. Don't want Waitrose getting swamped!!

Well that’s fine for you but mine came from the local store and was an absolute shit show of missing items and ridiculous short dates.

Some of these posts about cheese types availability and cooked meat tastyness are bizarre. Is that you Waitrose? And as for the OP, just buy the cheaper cucumber ffs.

I've had a couple of orders now- half a dozen subs each order- not just M&S products but mostly. The subs are reasonable, though, and I've happily accepted them all.

M&S equivalents have been comparable in price and quality. I think M&S fruit is better than Waitrose and their Count on Us and Balanced for You ranges are brilliant for my diet. However the ease of obtaining Mountain Bars and M&S Toffee Meringues may completely wreck my diet.

I tried my first Ocado-with-M&S and tried a load of their M&S “value” range (ReMarksable).
The macaroni pasta was good, and the fresh veg seemed okay too. Red label teabags not so much.
And the whole frozen bag was “missing from order “ , which was a bit weird ...

I’ll give them a few tries and see.

M&S Toffee Meringues are surprisingly low calorie through! (I think around 180 cals each).

I had some missing frozen items too, he said weirdly lots of people have some of their frozen food missing.

Waitrose made the decision as they were not prepared to pay the going rate. M&S are

As I like both Waitrose and M&S I have no issues and Ocado own brand is as good as Waitrose essential in most things

So some will move and sone will join for M&S so I doubt there will be a big issue for them