Is anyone else annoyed with Ocado ditching Waitrose?

[lockdowndreamer]

Ocado what are you up to?? Ditching Waitrose for M&S? Is this really happening? Not a fan of M&S at all in the food department, always feel like they are trying too hard. Their food looks and taste like plastic and wrapped in a lot more plastic.

I will be setting up my account with Waitrose online right away. Such a hassle though moving as I have it all sorted on the Ocado website for speed shopping, with all my favs, shopping lists etc. and the Ocado service is amazing!

Hey Ocado, if you are reading this, can you set up a cloud service for us migrating customers so we can do a backup of all our favourites before moving to Waitrose? You know, like when moving from Android to iPhone..

Is anyone else annoyed at the situation?

M&S gluten free fresh food is really good as well. So will be interesting to see.

It's been known about for months.
Their recent email suggests it will affect a very small number if items. All their own brand and other brands will still be around. Ocado often have their own version of Waitrose brands anyway.

I don't use m and s food much but when I do it's always been great, so I can't see it will be an issue great all.

I'll be staying with them. My experience of Waitrose online delivery in the last was never great.

@lockdowndreamer the food in Waitrose is no better (imo) than Sainsbury's which is my nearest nice shop. I get basics in Lidl (eggs, sugar, bread etc) but prefer to buy veg and vegetarian food in Sainsbury's.
M and S is my guilty pleasure. There is a lot of prepacked food and ready meals but they don't taste like hospital food to me. They have their place if I'm pushed for time. No other store comes close Waitrose, Sainsbury's. Therefore when it goes live I will definitely be using the delivery.
I love the creamed Spinach at m & s. I could live on it.

We don't know yet. We also liked the essentials range, nicer than Sainsbury's or Tesco, and like a lot of Ocado own brands. I like M&S too but their over-use of plastic packaging boils my p*ss.

I'm thinking we'll have to go back to the traditional weekly shop but use Sainsbury's smart shop to avoid the tills.

I’ll try it. But worried about the cost implications - I buy a lot of Waitrose essential products and don’t think there is an M&S equivalent. Also concerned about the lack of choice for store cupboard essentials - have always been struck by how M&S seem to focus on ready made products. Might cope by buying Ocado branded products though they by no means have a full range.

It’s annoying for me as we don’t have a Waitrose anywhere close to us so Ocado is the only way I can get Waitrose food!

I do love M&S food but I have several stores that I can visit easily enough.

I’m quite looking forward to it. Our local Waitrose is quite small though so doesn’t have the range if you shop from there direct

You can still internet shop with Waitrose through their own website....

I only online food shop with Ocado for 2 reasons. No local Waitrose and most importantly they pick from a warehouse. I just cannot see the point of ordering online when all that happens is someone else wanders the isles of your local supermarket to find that the meat you wanted isn't there.
I only do an online shop every now and then so would possibly give it a go. It would depend on the basics though tbh.

I'm totally with you @AJPTaylor - the warehouse element is by far the biggest draw for me. Longer dates, fewer substitutions, massive range.

I'm hopeful M&S bring in a range which matches WR Essential on price - if they do, I'll stay. Or Ocado expand their OL range - there are a fair few staples where if you can't get WR Essentials then you only have branded options, and I'm not paying for Kellogg's cereals or Yeo Valley Greek yogurt! Most Ocado own label stuff is OK, but not all (IMHO). I know for a fact they don't necessarily come from the same suppliers as WR (I'm sure people think it's just the same thing but with a different label) as I work with quite a few WR own label suppliers across different categories, and they don't supply Ocado own label.

It's a question of 'wait and see' for me - if a broad range of decent OL stuff is available, at the same kind of price, I'll stay. If not, I'll have to re-think my shopping habits!

I hadn't heard about this? . I don't want M & S crap, or I'd bloody order from them in the first place.

I've never bothered with Ocado and just have Waitrose own deliveries. Its always been great and there is no delivery charge if your spend is over £60 (not hard at Waitrose !) One of the drivers was telling me that after the Ocado split they will be redrawing all the delivery territories to enable them to fit in many more slots.

@TheDogsMother

I've never bothered with Ocado and just have Waitrose own deliveries. Its always been great and there is no delivery charge if your spend is over £60 (not hard at Waitrose !) One of the drivers was telling me that after the Ocado split they will be redrawing all the delivery territories to enable them to fit in many more slots.

Oh, that's good.

@Keepyourginup Waitrose don’t deliver in my area.

I'm annoyed with it. I have been reliant on Ocado over the last few weeks but .i won't use them once they've switched to M&S

They announced it last year didn't they? I've known for ages anyway. It's from September.

Ocado have been absolutely brilliant for me during this pandemic but I suspect we are very good customers of theirs as have always done my shopping through them and have a big family. I also like the way they deliver with bags and (in normal times) collect the bags and refund the charge.

I thought that they were trying to match all the Waitrose products so that everything has a close equivalent, either from M&S or Ocado? It wouldn't make good business sense for them to just drop popular items so I assume there won't be many things that don't have a direct equivalent.

I like M&S for certain items but do find Waitrose better for a full shop. I used to shop in store but then they expanded their delivery area to include our previously missed rural house. I have to say that they have been fantastic even throughout the pandemic, managing a weekly slot and driver always on time. So those who are able to get a Waitrose delivery I don't think you'll miss Ocado too much.

Ocado have been brilliant for me too since their initial meltdown at the end of March, but I think pretty much every supermarket had issues of some kind. Since early April I've been able to get a slot every week like clockwork. I know that's not everyone's experience so maybe it's just our area, but we haven't had any issues at all since the end of March.

I have used them for over a decade, boycotted them for a bit last year and used Waitrose online and it wasn't great so as soon as Ocado apologised for their stupid twitter stuff I went back to them. I don't order much Essential Waitrose stuff anyway, and for what I did I've been switching over to Ocado OL where available and I haven't noticed any significant drop in quality between the two.

The other thing about lockdown is it's made me shop more widely - I now have discovered places to buy fish, meat and eggs online or locally that are fresher and more sustainable, and expanded our fruit & veg box. Ocado is now more the dry and frozen stuff or hard to find ingredients, not much of which was Waitrose brand anyway. As long as they keep all the non-Waitrose stuff the same, and add M&S stuff, I doubt I'll mind much.

Looking down this week's shopping with Ocado, I've got Bart spices, Reflets de France cheese, Cornish butter and clotted cream, Slabs crisps, Ugly water, Ocado brand berries, Picard frozen stuff, Natoora charcuterie, Unearthed sausages, Isle of Wight tomatoes. None of that will change, I'm assuming (hoping!)

Ocado apologised for their stupid twitter stuff.
What was this??

Actually a good point has been raised. Shelf life. Marks are dreadful for selling short dated stuff. They have ONE chance to get it right. If my first shop is full of stuff that expires the following day I won't be using them again.

I’m delighted. I’ve managed to get Waitrose slots throughout most of lockdown (when Tesco locally has been completely useless). I’m looking forward to orderI got some M&S treats too.

I'm not pleased about it as I find M&S fresh produce disappointingly bland - but after ten years of Ocado use I've also widened my delivery horizons during lockdown. So I no longer need them for fruit/veg, cheese, fish, pulses/legumes, flour ...

But I'm not keen to drop them now, in case of future lockdown chaos. In the end it paid to be a long-term, regular customer.

Also the delivery people are (mostly) excellent and I have everything set up on the site (and long lost app) to make online shopping easy.

Will wait and see ...

Yep. I stopped using Ocado about a year ago when I heard this news and now shop with Waitrose. Except I don't at the moment as it is impossible to get a slot.

We've had a couple of deliveries from Sainsburys - they are ok but I will go back to Waitrose when we can.

The Waitrose website and service is awful compared to Ocado. I'd have much preferred Ocado to stay with Waitrose but I won't be leaving because I just can't deal with the disaster that is the Waitrose website and logistics.

I’ve become so disillusioned with Ocado over the lockdown that I’ve moved to Sainsbury’s and definitely staying with them.