Not just for Groceries (tesco.com)

Member Name: MaryanneH

Product:	tesco.com
Date:	03/11/04 (236 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: convenience

Disadvantages: you are not in charge

Granny, Grampys doing something very odd in the kitchen!
‘Whats that darling?’
‘He’s chopping up potatoes into chip shapes?’

This was the rather amused conversation that my parents related to me when I turned up to collect my girls after a weekend out. Now I’ve always declared that my kids would know exactly where their food came from, carrots out of the earth, eggs out of a chickens bum that sort of thing but it never occurred to me that they would just assume that chips came from a bag out of the freezer.

Having tasted the real thing, fried in a fryer, they wanted to taste it again. So after some persuasion with my Husband we agreed to buy a fryer, and turned to Tesco.com. as they seem to be the cheapest.

The site opens into a very easy to navigate home page, but it is very busy I think that has something to do with all the finance and insurance options they now have, which whilst I can understand are very commercial for them do make the page look somewhat tacky and the red electrical sale advert box has the same effect.

Essentially these days Tescos are no longer just grocers consequently the navigation buttons read ‘extra’, ‘groceries’, ‘finance and insurance’, ‘ telecoms’ and ‘other’. All the electrical things are in the ‘extra’ section so that was my first visit. The section is then divided into all the extra options which are things like electricals, books and dvds, flowers and wines so as you can see these days you don’t really need another store at all. They even take care of dvd rental, writing your will or booking you holiday and almost as if they know the reason for my visit there is a section on healthy eating. In fact as a store the only thing they don’t currently offer are sporting facilities, so no doubt in the years to come all stores will have a custom built gym, sports hall and swimming pool with Tesco casino and night club next to it.

So how was my visit to the electricals section? It was incredibly easy to find what I was looking for as all the electricals are divided into sections and our chip fryer came under small kitchen electricals but if you know what you’re looking for you can just type it in. It gives all the information you could wish for, model number, a picture and all the details but just in case you didn’t thing that Tesco were the best thing for sliced bread, (sorry since sliced bread) they even give you a price comparison from Argos and Curries.

Anyway I placed my order and I must say they managed the expectations very well, they told me to expect delivery in 5 days time, which is reasonable and I received a confirmation email from them. However lunch time the following day it arrived, so guess what we had for tea – and I have to say, with all the healthy eating that we are all obliged to do these days I honestly enjoyed that dinner more than anything else in a long time, and didn’t spend the evening craving and stuffing chocolate because I was still hungry.

So what about the rest of the site?

The main reason for using Tesco.com is to avoid actually having to join the masses in Tesco itself. The grocery section is very well organised and split into all the various sections. Now having been a Tesco customer for a number of years I have naturally had a Tesco Clubcard for a good few years this site does give you an idea of exactly how much Big Brother is watching you these days as if you click on your Favourites you can see all your recent, and not so recent purchases in case you want to buy them again, even things like CDs and DVDs although I’m not quite sure why you would want to buy the same one twice! It can also take an element of surprise out of things as I have a joint card with my husband and having just looked on the site for research purposed I think I might be getting the Il Divo CD for my birthday!

So picking out your shopping is easy you simply find what you are looking for and click how many, or what weight you want. Then according to the advert you have a very efficient lady going around knowing exactly what you look for in your melons carefully picking out your shopping, giving you a ‘sensible’ alternative if your original order was unavailable. Now what is the reality of all this? On the whole, not bad, but not great either I am not convinced that the ‘very efficient young lady’ isn’t and inexperienced work experience person, judging by the fact that last time I ordered some sprouts, I can’t remember how much it was but it certainly wasn’t the 3 bags full that I got, I ended up giving them to half my street. I have also heard of but fortunately not experienced first hand incidents such as ‘lemon cif’ being replaced with a string bag of lemons. Things like the free yeast that you can get from the bread counter aren’t an option with the online shopping and I did once try to get the main local rag changed for the one more specific to my area which didn’t work either even though I know it is available from the store they use.

The problem is this service is great if you are happy to relinquish responsibility for your shopping and you are paying on average £5 for someone else to chose your family meals. So my experience of this has led me to not using it very often but I am fortunate in the fact that I don’t have to, I don’t work 9 – 5 and I am mobile so I can chose my time accordingly, which Christmas week is now 5.30 in the morning. But for the housebound and people who work all hours it is ideal.

The delivery charges throughout the site are not unreasonable, the chip fryer was free delivery as is on all electricals, and flowers the home delivery grocery service varies depending on when you want it delivered ranging from £3.99 to £5.99 for weekends

So would I recommend Tesco.com, all things considered yes, I prefer to do my main shop myself but do use the service from time to time and for the electricals the service was first class. I don’t think I would use it for books or CDs as I think Amazon is marginally cheaper once but as with any only shopping it is always worth shopping around and I would always take a look at Tesco.com for my comparison.

Thank you for reading.

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