Stress free shopping - impressive tesco.com delivery service! (tesco.com)

Member Name: karlsm93

Product:	tesco.com
Date:	28/02/09 (119 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to use, driver came within time slot, goods were dated and fresh

Disadvantages: on first experience couldn not get many of the items required.

I know there are already hundreds of reviews on dooyoo about tesco.com, but I thought I would add my own opinion, as from the quick sample I read there seems to be a vast range of views on the service.

As I only live 5 minutes from our local tesco store, I have never even thought of using the online shopping service, however, after a recommendation from a friend and more appealingly having a £10 off voucher (when you spend £50 or more beofre March 2009), I decided to have a go.

During my half term holidays, I decided I would sit down at the computer and have a go at compiling my shopping list. We were having friends round for dinner that weekend so I knew I was going to have a longer list and easily spend over the £50.

On the website I was immediately impressed by the fact that by giving my clubcard details, they could call up items that I purchased regularly, thus speeding up the process of making my list. However, things started to go slightly downhill, when I soon found that about 5 -10 of the itms on my list were not available. The problem with this was that firstly, many of these items were an essential part of the dinner that I had planned for our friends, and secondly, there were more expensive items, which would have ensured that I was spending over the required £50.

So after spending at least 45 minutes on the website, I gave up, realising that I would, in the end, have to go to Tesco or elsewhere to get those products. I wouldnt' have minded one or two unavailable items, but I felt there too many to warrant using tesco.com on this instance.

A week later however, and the lure of the voucher remained. I had no such dinner party to prepare for, just our usual grocery list, so I thought I'd have another go. I completed this order online three days before I wanted the delivery to take place, and with the time slot requested I paid £5.50 (free using my voucher). This time however, I was able to get all the items that I wanted, so was better pleased second time around.

Overall the site was pretty easy to get around, although I didn't like the fact that product savings or promotions were only taken off, on the day of delivery, therefore not giving you a completely accurate total amount. This was however, only a minor niggle on my part.


Sure enough on the day and within the time slot requested, the delivery van arrived. Since this was my first time using the service, the driver talked me briefly through how substitutions worked, in that if don't have the product requested, they will substitute it for a similar product. In this case, the couple of items that had substitutions were perfectly fine, and I had no problem with the replacement items. These didn't seem to be any more expensive than the original requested.

The driver gave me a receipt with my list of groceries for me to check through, with the total amount stated (promotions and savings having been taken off). I had requested no carrier bags, so the driver came into the kitchen and unloaded everything on my workbench. The only items that arrived in separate bags, where the substituted items, fresh meat, and cleaning/toiletry products, which I was happy enough to have kept separate.

On closer inspection, I was pleased to find everything was there that I had ordered but more importantly everything was well dated (something that I had been slightly concerned about and had wrote a note beside certain products).

On the whole, although my first experience wasn[t great in that I couldn't get some of the items that I needed, my second experience was much more positive, and I was very impressed by the service itself, and how fresh, chilled, and well dated teh products were. Overall I would definitely use this again, but probably only if I was getting free delivery, since I don't think I could warrant the delivery fee given that we are so close to the store. It was nice however, not to spend a busy Friday afternoon in Tesco straight after work.

Summary: Worth doing again, but only if I can get free delivery