It is the little extra touches that make all the difference (Ocado.com)

Member Name: azana

Product:	Ocado.com
Date:	31/03/09 (264 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A much nicer experience than competitors

Disadvantages: It is more expensive

I find online shopping for food very convenient and a bit of an affordable treat, I don't use ocado very often as I am more of a Tesco/Lidl gal, however after my most recent experience I would be very tempted to use them more often, specifically in comparison to tesco delivery which I use more frequently.

Ocado is an online food and grocery delivery service that deals in Waitrose food. They have a delivery centre rather than a shop from which goods are dispatched. I ordered from them after a little gap of not ordering following them sending me a £15 off voucher. You need to register with www.ocado.com to order, though you can browse the site and check whether they deliver to your area.

Making an order:

Delivery slots are one hourly and in my area from 6am - 11:30 pm. Prices on delivery slots ranged from £5.49 to a very reasonable 0.99p for a 9:30 to 10:30 slot. There was plenty of availability and you can also choose a green van, which means the van is in your area and there is a saving on fuel. There is the option to pay £8.99 per month or £99.99 per year for all your deliveries (no further charge). I paid £1.99 for my delivery slot - a nice touch was that I got an email the day before the delivery to remind me that I had booked.

Filling your online basket:

I found the menus easy to navigate and the page is quite clear;visually not too fussy. There is a "your shop" area with items you have bought before, and also ideas such as thrifty recipes. Shopping from the web page is simple and intuitive and I found the site to be quite fast. There was a "tesco price match" next to many items and the range of food was excellent. I treated myself to a few items like frozen pain au raisin and apple and cinammon yoghurt that I know I can get from Waitrose (on my rare treat-to-myself visits) and not elsewhere. Checkout was easy and straightforward and overall it is a pleasant site to use.

Delivery:

As promised my shopping came bang on time in the one hour time slot, as it has every time I have used the service. A nice touch is that all the food is in colour coded bags, so all the fridge things in one colour and cupboard in another. This made unpacking almost a pleasure, and is not something other online delivery from supermarket services I have used provide. The delivery man was polite and helpful - even offering an opinion on my current domestic crisis (lost key that was a one an only and still not found after 8 hours searching). He didn't seem to mind the toddlers running everywhere either - I got a free copy of "The Times" with my order and no replacement products. A nice touch is that on the delivery notice it tells you how many days you have to eat your products - they say the aim is for their food to be as fresh as it can be and call it their "life" guarantee - from my experience they are true to their word - I had 4 days in which to eat my croissants, a recent Tesco order contained croissants on their last day, which were refunded when I phoned but with my ocado order all was well. I got exactly what I ordered, delivered when I asked for it by a pleasant and helpful delivery man.

Pricing and overall:

Waitrose food has a very good reputation and consistently comes top in any survey I have ever seen - and I can see why. It is however perceived as being a bit more pricey, and tesco price match on branded goods notwithstanding I think possibly you do end up spending a little more money when you shop at Ocado as opposed to Tesco or Sainsbury's. Recently I have been menu planning and am very careful on what I buy - for example I will buy misshapen salmon at Tesco or the economy brands. Ocado have introduced cheaper ranges however generally you are shopping for a more expensive range of food. I did spend about as much as normal but probably got a little less food. I can't fault the quality of the food and the delivery however, the service is excellent. Due to loyalty cards and discount codes and the like I probably will stick to Tesco for a week to week shop as I am counting the pennies, however in an ideal world I would shop at Ocado every week if I could. I shall shop at Ocado again on an occassional basis, but I wish that all online supermarkets had the nice little touches that the Ocado service offers - Ocado quite simply do a great job.

Summary: I wish I could shop here all the time