Supermarket Online Orders

[Elawin]

What is your experience of ordering online? Do you always get what you order, or do you have any problems with the quality of food delivered?

I have been ordering online for years, virtually just after Tesco started doing online ordering, and apart from the occasional odd substitution (but nothing so way out as some of the horror stories you sometimes hear) I have been more than satisfied with their customer service. I have occasionally received food which must be used up almost immediately, but a quick phone call to customer service usually gets a refund or vouchers for more than the cost of the item.

I usually only ordered tinned goods, staple foods such as flour etc, or heavy pet or non-food items, and get most of my fresh food and meat from elsewhere, but last night when I put in my order, they had an offer on frozen foods which I couldn't resist. I ordered two cartons of ice cream and some pomegranate seeds. The food was all delivered at 8 a.m. The frozen dog food was in a blue bag, but the ice cream and the pomegranate seeds were in the trays with the rest of the non-frozen stuff. The delivery chap was horrified and I was none too pleased. However, a quick phone call to their customer service department, more to inform them of someone's mistake than anything else as all three items were still very, very cold, brought an immediate refund.

Riverford employed a new delivery driver in our area a few months ago and I did have cause to complain on more than one occasion - some things were very damp, including dry foods - but the costs were quickly refunded and the situation rectified by replacing the driver!

The only supermarket I have had problems with has been Sainsbury's. Our shopping comes from the local large store who are pretty good but occasionally make mistakes. The problem is their customer service department, which is elsewhere. Their attitude seems to be rather off-putting and I often feel I have to argue the toss with them. It happens far too often to have just caught someone on a bad day. The crunch came when I ordered two items banded "buy 2 for £9.99" and they sent me two unbanded items for £10 each! I now tend to avoid their offers unless they are coupons for money off the whole order, or shop in our local, much smaller store which does not stock a very large range.

Are these problems usual? Or do you find that some online stores are just too awkward to order from?

 

[ElizabethB]

I have never ordered food on-line. I really try to limit on-line ordering. Christmas is always an exception. I ordered a Japanese chef knife, strop and cutting board for Stepson from a reputable source. I have ordered from them before and so have my brothers. In the comments box I entered "DELIVER TO CARPORT DOOR". Both packages were delivered to the front door. The delivery instructions were boldly written on the packages. DUHHH!

 

[Elawin]

I ordered a book from Amazon at nearly midnight on Monday for one of my granddaughters as a Christmas present. It came on Tuesday morning. As I had another delivery coming from somewhere else, I was in all day. The other delivery came at about 10.30 a.m. Amazon deliver at any time up until 8 p.m. so I waited and waited. At 7 p.m. I looked online and it said the parcel had been delivered ("handed to householder"). I looked out of the window and there it was propped up against the front door. No one had knocked or rung the doorbell, and the mutt hadn't barked, but there it was. It was a good job it hadn't been raining! I have complained. I had other things to do rather than wait in all day, and the package was small enough to go through my letterbox.

 

[GadgetGuy]

I've ordered things for the kitchen & for the home from Amazon.com.

 

[Yorky]

I've ordered and received many items online without significant problems.

However, the only time I've ordered food was as a trial for a forum for which I worked. Gratis Bht 1,500.00 (about £30.00 then). It arrived in a cardboard box without any indication of the contents. It had meat at the bottom of the box and dry ice at the top. There was no urgency indicated on the box and it took well over 24 hours to get here from Bangkok.

Never bothered again.

 

[Morning Glory]

I have been ordering online for years, virtually just after Tesco started doing online ordering, and apart from the occasional odd substitution (but nothing so way out as some of the horror stories you sometimes hear) I have been more than satisfied with their customer service.

On-line grocery ordering is much more prevalent in the UK than any other country - probably because our small size makes the transportation more do-able. I too have shopped on-line since the early days, mainly with Tesco but lately with both Ocado and Tesco's. The only real problem I ever had was with Asda. They are very good value for some items and I started using them a few years back. I had so many problems with the deliveries (mainly with missing items, no substitutes and no notification they were missing) that I became on first name terms on the phone with the manager who once even included a bouquet of flowers in a delivery to say sorry!

Ocado I love, because it has items which are simply impossible to obtain elsewhere such as The Black Farmer eggs I use with the deep golden yolks*. They also stock lots of vegan products and interesting exotic fruit and vegetables which I can't get elsewhere. I recently bought Trompettes de la Mortes mushrooms, for example and quinces. They also stock Waitrose products. Its a bit pricey though - I justify it because cooking is my main hobby...

As for substitutes, you don't have to accept them and you get a refund if you don't. Occasionally I've done very well with subs because they will always charge the price of the originally ordered product or less (never more). Once I got twice the amount of lamb because they didn't have a smaller size pack.

I do almost all food shopping on line, supplemented by the odd trip to Aldi, which is very handy as there is a store at the end of my road.

Black Farmer Egg:

 

[CraigC]

If we are talking about food items, we have ordered things that we can't get locally. Certain fresh mushrooms like cepes (porcini) and morels simply aren't available in SE Florida. Until we discovered local places to get live crawfish, black truffles (can't afford white) and Dungeness crab, we ordered online. Maybe Karen can, but I can't recall any problems with ordering food items. The Hatch chilis I roasted were ordered online.

Sort of a funny story. We had been trying to find local Italian markets that carried guanciale to no avail. We were going to buy some hog jowl to make our own. Karen noticed that there is a Farmer's Market in in a town just south of us (we actually lived there previously) that is only open on the weekends. There is a vendor there that deals in heritage pork (Berkshire) so we got some jowl from them. As we were leaving, we noticed an Italian food distributor next to the market. They also open on Saturdays to sell to the public. Just on a whim, we stopped and I went in to see if they had guanciale. Well, now we had some hog jowl to figure out what to do with, as I walked away from the Italian place with about 14 pounds of guanciale. Speck! We can't find that locally. Karen made up the cure and we put the rubbed jowl in the fridge to cure for 3-5 days before getting smoked. Our plans were interrupted by a pest named Irma. The curing jowl got stuck in one of our freezers to ride out the storm. Once things got back to normal, the curing jowl was let to thaw out. We weren't sure what to expect, not knowing if the jowl continued to cure in the freezer (now about two weeks after). So we cut a piece off and cooked it in a skillet. Can you say SALTY? Several water soaks and rinses later, it went on the Egg to smoke. In keeping with my German heritage, I used alder chunks for smoke. Completely pleased with the end product!

The first thing we made with the Speck was kaiser spaetzle. Yum.

 

[Morning Glory]

guanciale

Had to look that up! The final product look lovely. So the salt curing continues sub zero...

 

[CraigC]

Had to look that up! The final product look lovely. So the salt curing continues sub zero...

The pictures are of the Speck we made with the hog jowl and we aren't sure if the curing continued in the freezer. If we make it again, hopefully we won't be bothered with "Hurricane Interuptus" and can smoke it after the original curing time in the fridge. Guanciale is basically "pancetta" made with jowl instead of pork belly. Have you ever tried pork soup dim sum?

 

[Morning Glory]

Have you ever tried pork soup dim sum?

I've had dim sum in a restaurant but not made them myself. I think @The Late Night Gourmet has made pork Dim Sum, see here: .#176

 

[CraigC]

I've had dim sum in a restaurant but not made them myself. I think @The Late Night Gourmet has made pork Dim Sum, see here: .#176

Karen makes dumplings and pot stickers. We still have some filling in the freezer. Soup dumplings, from scratch are an adventure. Pigs feet, pig skin with no fat and pork leg bones are used to make an aspic. A piece of cold aspic is placed in each dumpling, along with the filling. As the dumplings steam, the aspic turns back to a liquid and becomes the "soup".

 

[medtran49]

Had to look that up! The final product look lovely. So the salt curing continues sub zero...

I don't know. The pieces did have the excess cure washed off (a standard part of the procedure) and were dried before going in the freezer since we knew we were going to get at least a partial hit from the hurricane a day or so before and would more than likely lose electricity. I had kind of winged it on the cure, used bits and pieces of several recipes, but the salt amount should have been okay as I did that by weight. I was playing with the spice blend. There were widely varying times in the recipes for curing time though so I just sort of planned for a median amount of curing time originally. I'd probably just go for less curing time and do a test taste next time.

 

[Morning Glory]

Karen makes dumplings and pot stickers. We still have some filling in the freezer. Soup dumplings, from scratch are an adventure. Pigs feet, pig skin with no fat and pork leg bones are used to make an aspic. A piece of cold aspic is placed in each dumpling, along with the filling. As the dumplings steam, the aspic turns back to a liquid and becomes the "soup".

That sounds quite exquisite! And it is giving me some ideas...

 

[MrsDangermouse]

We've started shopping with Ocado earlier this year when MSE had a deal on so you got a year's delivery for free. Overall I like it and we can usually make up the £40 minimum spend with store cupboard things. I always get my bread flour from the Waitrose in town but I find half the time its out of stock, so its great now that I don't have to make a special journey for that.

As for substitutes, you don't have to accept them and you get a refund if you don't. Occasionally I've done very well with subs because they will always charge the price of the originally ordered product or less (never more). Once I got twice the amount of lamb because they didn't have a smaller size pack.

Now that's interesting....when we've had substitutions we've always been charged the price of the substituted item (which is usually much more expensive eg. Cravendale milk instead of ordinary). The only time we've got something better at the original price was when it was part of a multi-buy offer (we got 2 of the original items and 1 substitute). I like the fact that they tell you beforehand whether you have any substitutes so you can decide what to do when it arrives.

I don't know though whether we'll carry on once the free delivery expires though. Yes its more convenient, but even after paying for parking in town I think it would be cheaper to buy from the shop ourselves (the My Waitrose discounts are pretty good).

 

[Morning Glory]

ow that's interesting....when we've had substitutions we've always been charged the price of the substituted item (which is usually much more expensive eg. Cravendale milk instead of ordinary). The only time we've got something better at the original price was when it was part of a multi-buy offer (we got 2 of the original items and 1 substitute). I like the fact that they tell you beforehand whether you have any substitutes so you can decide what to do when it arrives.

I don't know though whether we'll carry on once the free delivery expires though. Yes its more convenient, but even after paying for parking in town I think it would be cheaper to buy from the shop ourselves (the My Waitrose discounts are pretty good).

Perhaps its only Tesco's that does the substitute for same price or cheaper not Ocado.

I buy the delivery pass each year from both Tesco and Ocado - I buy wine from Tesco so its easy to reach the £40 minimum! So I often use both Tesco and Ocado in the same week and sometimes more than once. I also use them to shop for the family when I'm away as well as using them at my friend's house. So sometimes I'm doing two orders to different addresses on the same day!