About me:Hello! I'm a 36 divorced mother of 1. I'm currently at Newcastle Uni, have just learned to ride a ...
Member since:06.07.2003
Reviews:1
Review rated by 22 Ciao members on average: helpful
This review received a counterstatement by a party concernedRead Comment
Firstly, I must confess to hating grocery shopping. I am also rather lazy in that I want to carry all the shopping bags in one trip from my car to the front door and that needs to be a distance of approximately 10 feet. Sadly, since I have moved house my car cannot get within 30 feet of the house without causing a road traffic incident so the answer to my prayers, or so I thought, was online shopping, and Tesco was the only supermarket to deliver to my area.
I have used the online grocery service 4 times in total. It is absolutely fantastic if you want to stock up on all the heavy items e.g. 20 bottles of lemonade, 17kg of dog food etc. After all, why have to traipse it all in yourself when you can get someone else to do it!
However, fresh produce is a nightmare and tinned
goods need careful monitoring.
I have found that the 'picker' has taken the opportunity to rid the store of damaged tins i.e. all the bashed and dented ones that we would stay clear of if we were shopping for ourselves. Frankly, I can't be bothered checking the state of each tin anymore before the driver (who is obviously pushed for time), wants to be away to his next drop.
As for fresh produce... well. There are 2 things to be wary of - substitutions and 'best before' dates. They either substitute the most ridiculous things for items out of stock, or the most expensive alternative e.g. 2 kg of broccoli ordered at 50p per kg, substituted with 2 'premier' stalks of broccoli at £1 each! Might not seem a lot but that's a price hike of 100% and if you don't catch it in the time you have to check the list then you've paid over the odds. The other thing to mention about substitutions is that I found my list was given to me at the end of 3 of my deliveries, cutting dwn your reviewing time even further. Don't forget, they only bring the stuff to the door, you have to move it off the doorstep as each new delivery crate is brought out so you can't pay full attention to everything unless you stop.
As for fresh produce, well, I have another tale to tell. 2 fresh chickens ordered - one had a 'best before' date of that day, the other of the next day. Naturally I didn't notice until the driver was off, otherwise I would have refused them at the time (which is what you can do with substitutions you're not happy with). Instead, I had to ring customer services to complain, pointing out that had I bought these in store, at least one of them would have been marked down. Now I had 2 chickens that needed eating within 2 days. The reply from customer services was "can't you freeze one?". The point of ordering 'fresh' had obviously gone over her head. Anyway, after a further phone call, the money was refunded. The same situation arises on yoghurts too though - only a few days of shelf life. The website page does offer a 'notes' screen but I was unable to access it until I upgraded my web browser.
The point here is, if you want your goods to arrive in tip top condition and have good dates, you will have to check them as they arrive and refuse any that you are not happy with. You aren't just paying for delivery as I see it, you are paying for personal shopping so you should be getting the best. I may have just been unlucky. However, my trust has somewhat dissipated and now everything gets checked. If you want someone to bring your heavy goods home or can live with a little imperfection, then it'll do nicely! After all, convenience is very convenient!
As for the website itself - it is easy to use, you can change your order as often as you like up to a certain number of hours before the actual delivery date which is really useful as you can compile your list as you remember things you need. Apparently there are pictures of some of the items but I have never been able to access them (perhaps a problem at my end). For the first time shopper it is probably best to use the 'Express Shopper' facility. This is where you would type in your shopping list and then Tesco provides the details of each product that matches. From there you select what you want. After your initial shopping trip, all the details are saved under the 'My Favourites' and on subsequent trips you access that list and enter quantities on each item you wish to purchase. For new items, the search bar again comes up with matches and you select what is appropriate. The first shopping trip could take you 15-20 mins but it speeds up after that.
Maybe a bit more detail on the website itself, but I've rated it VH anyway, as I feel it gave a lot of info on the service (the dented tins and short best before date trick seems common!)
by (14%):
10.12.2003 09:56
Welcome to ciao
06.12.2003 19:45
Maybe a bit more detail on the website itself, but I've rated it VH anyway, as I feel it gave a lot of info on the service (the dented tins and short best before date trick seems common!)
06.12.2003 15:41
I quite agree with regard to the fresh produce. I'd not buy any from Tesco online. But they're great for the tins!