Ocado tips, hacks, Toblerone and Christmas

[GaryUnicorn]

Carrying on from the old thread....

Still no email about the Christmas slots.

Deservedly or not, if I focus my anger at the demise of the Ocado I knew and loved, I won't be quite as angry about lockdown 2.

It is rapidly becoming M&S online and (like a lot of M&S) it's not doing it well. I feel sorry for the smaller producers who have been unceremoniously dumped.

I appreciate that they have had to rush to introduce 1,000s more product lines, but the quality and customer service is suffering.

It's a little odd that it takes a pandemic to wean my of a decade of Ocado, but I think I need to go back to supermarket shopping and local suppliers.

It is rapidly becoming M&S online

Powerful testament! Even though I wasn't best pleased with this new contract I assumed M&S would just be a small, easily ignored, section of Ocado. But if it is indeed swallowing the whole outfit ...

Minor good news is that the Waitrose Recycled loo roll now seems to have been replaced with an identikit Ocado offering.

But it's hard to find headroom to cogitate over whether my £5.99 a month is actually of any benefit, when Ocado is showing me I'll have one more delivery and then none for the whole of eternity. It's just a focus for extra concern at the moment.

Does anyone have a reserved slot? Are these guaranteed? Or are they the first to be cancelled in case of problems?

@Florelei

Does anyone have a reserved slot? Are these guaranteed? Or are they the first to be cancelled in case of problems?

I thought they stopped the ability to reserve the same slot every week at the start of the last lockdown. I can book 2 slots a week, 3 days apart and up to 4 weeks in advance, but I think this will stop soon. As soon as a delivery has arrived I can go online and there are always slots for the days I want. My daughter has a delivery on a Monday and I have one on the Friday.

@Florelei

Does anyone have a reserved slot? Are these guaranteed? Or are they the first to be cancelled in case of problems?

Reserved came back over the summer. I have Thursdays delivery automatically reserved until December 3rd at present. I can’t have any other slots though, which over august/September time I could.

Obviously those still might end up cancelled but so far so good.

I have Saturday morning reserved with orders until 5th dec

I was offered a reserved weekly slot yesterday. I have been able to book three weeks in advance which I’ve been happy with. I’d be delighted with a guaranteed weekly slot but I’m just worried our slot will be the first to be cancelled if things get bad again.

Reserved and the app are back for some

But not for me

I got my reserved slot back last week.
It seems to be different to before. In the past it was possible to lose the slot as it only generated the order the week before. But now it seems to generate the order as soon as the day becomes available.

I got my reserved slot back about 10 days, but had to wait 30 days for first order! First order is 6th December and it’s been generated, so if they don’t cancel, then I’ll have deliveries on 13th and the 19th December, which is the last date for normal deliveries (I couldn’t get a Christmas slot)

I don’t trust them not to cancel reserved again though, so I’ve booked a weekly slot with Asda until Christmas - when they opened Christmas slots they opened up booking all the way until Christmas, instead of the usual 2 weeks ahead only.

On now, or iplay later:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000p6dx

I am so fed up with Ocado. As someone with an anytime smart pass for many years and also a clinically extremely vulnerable shielding person, it annoys me that I can’t seem to get any deliveries now at all.
To make it worse, they put up the price of my smart pass, so now I am paying £10.99 a month for no deliveries.

I don’t understand why they can’t seem to manage when so many other supermarkets can. Iceland and Tesco are both offering me priority deliveries, despite me never previously shopping with them, but I would rather stick with Ocado as I have been using them for decades so it should be more convenient.

I guess they care absolutely nothing for brand loyalty.

And I am still fuming over the fact that they coincidentally doubled my monthly smart pass cost just after the first shielding list came out, ie. when they knew that I had very little choice but to keep paying it.

I'm fuming too NotAnother. Whatever algorithm they are using isn't working. I've had 3 emails from them this weekend about my situation. One seemed promising, the other sort of promising, then an automaticlly generated email saying I now have slots, blah blah. But I don't. There is nothing. I've one delivery coming on Thursday. If there is nothing available after that then I'm off. What the hell is the point?

I just cant get over how many things they dont stock anymore.Just went into order some coke for christmas and they no longer do the full fat vanilla or cherry coke, only diet versions.
They dont do first aid wipes any more. Everytime i go in to order things that i have ordered before it has disappeared. Do they think we dont notice?

I moved from Sainsburys to Ocado a few years ago because I liked their range of interesting and exotic ingredients, but quite a few of them that I would buy regularly have vanished within recent weeks.
I'm so disappointed, as I had hoped the M&S partnership would increase my choices, not deplete them.

In their defence, Ocado are still selling Skandikitchen stuff (their meatballs and yeast are both very good).

Not wishing to brag, but I can see 7 different timeslots available for tomorrow evening (£3.99) when I log in (and plenty on Thursday). None available for my local Waitrose for a fortnight.

So they have either found some more drivers and vans, or we've all sulked off elsewhere.

I’ve got a delivery coming today . Just checked and still no slots available after this one . Have booked sainsburys for next week who had plenty of slots . Will be cancelling my pass if this continues .

Just had a revelation!
I was looking for a delivery slot before filling my trolley - so I wouldn’t be wasting my time if there wasn't one - & there was nothing.
So out of curiosity I added £40+ of stuff and as if by magic there were LOADS of slots
Has it always been like this?
Anyway at least I know now

Oh ...

I was hoping it was, indeed, a revelation. And was already excoriating myself for not having been blessed with such comprehension months ago.

But sadly - filling my trolley has made no difference to the sea of grey unavailability of slots ...

Had to laugh this morning, added stuff to my Thursday reserved order, checked out and got a message telling me to book my next slot. Of course there aren't any (outside of my reserved ones anyway).

Just checked my ocado account. Slots now available next Thursday and Friday. They weren’t there before.

Anyone else had the chocolate Swiss roll on the £12 meal deal? Delicious, and large.

@PoulePouletteEternellement

Oh ...

I was hoping it was, indeed, a revelation. And was already excoriating myself for not having been blessed with such comprehension months ago.

But sadly - filling my trolley has made no difference to the sea of grey unavailability of slots ...

Oh I am sorry to have disappointed you, @PoulePouletteEternellement

There seems to be random different provision everywhere. It’s baffling.

No worries! It was mere curiosity for the moment ...

I can't believe the nerve of them charging a fee for a Smart Pass and then just saying 'it's no guarantee of a slot'.