Tesco Direct's Christmas Catalogue-I think I'm going to cry! (Tesco Direct)

Member Name: Lucille

Product:	Tesco Direct
Date:	01/12/00 (727 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good value for money

Disadvantages: Not everything is available of the website

I really like Tesco stores. We live close to several, so I use them all the time. It's actually quite rare I shop anywhere else for food. They also always have nice gift ideas at this time of year. So when I picked up their Christmas catalogue, and saw that you could order items through their mail order service on the Internet, I was really pleased. I thought it would save me time chasing round the different branches, as no one shop can carry the full range of goods available.

Tesco make a delivery charge of £2.95 whatever the size of the order, so as my Mum had also got a catalogue we decided to put our orders together, and I went to Tesco.com to place it. I first tried in the middle of November. I didn't find the site easy to use. Each section of merchandise is clearly labeled, but when I clicked on the relevant buttons, nothing happened. It took several goes before I could move on. I then found that despite the fact the catalogues were in the shops saying 'order early for Christmas', the gift section was not yet on the internet, so I logged off.

I tried again a week later and this time the gifts were there, so I started to place my order. Between my Mum and myself we wanted eight items. Out of all of them I only managed to order four, for a variety of reasons. These are things I wanted and the problems with them.

1. A chocolate lovers hamper- never been available on the site, never seen it in the shops. Must have been a wild fantasy of the photographer who put it in the catalogue!
2. A Latte mug set-out of stock on the net, brought one in my local store on the same day.
3. Herb & Spice Rack- same as above
4. Underwear- Only available on the net in size 34, not much good as I wanted to buy a 32.

I did manage to buy two different toiletries sets, and some sets of Christmas tree baubles, but even these weren't without problems. I wanted two
red sets and one gold, and they sent two gold and one red, so they will need to go back.

It wasn't all bad, as the things I did receive came in a reasonable amount of time, and were good value for money. However, it actually been quite stressful using tesco.com, and that is the exact opposite of why I wanted to use them. Tesco should make sure that they have all items in their catalogue available on their website, or there doesn't seem to be much point having one at all.

As for me, while I thought I would have an easy time Christmas shopping on the internet, now I'm going out to find something for someone who loves chocolate, some more baubles in the right colour, and underwear in a size 32. Sigh!

Summary: