David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

I took the plunge and ordered groceries on the Interweb. For years I have strayed away from online grocery shopping due to the fact that sometimes you don't get what you want, and you have to pay for it too!

But a voucher worth £40 in clubcard deals and a voucher for £5 off (which covered the delivery cost) made me pluck up enough courage. So here's how it went.
 
Ordering

This took a while. When I first logged in, I was presented with everything I had bought in the last physical shopping trip I made. I know they track everything I buy via the Clubcard but it's a bit weird when you see everything you bought last time. I expect it from Amazon, I just didn't expect it from Tesco. Having said that, it's a handy feature as it saved me more time than if I had to add everything from scratch.

One flaw the online system doesn't seem to handle well is special offers (buy one get one free, 2 for £2, etc.). They don't show up until you get your final bill. It does however take e-coupons off there and then, so I could see those savings instantly.

I may have been lucky or it may be usual but I managed to book next day delivery. I say day, I booked the delivery for between 7pm and 9pm, mainly because it was one of the cheaper options. I think 9pm to 11pm was cheaper still but I wasn't too keen on that! Mind you, others are as the delivery van was half full when he arrived.

Pictures

(Just to break up the post!). The one on the left is a standard Tesco.com delivery van and the one on the right is a new electric breed. More details can be found here.



Delivery

I booked a 7pm to 9pm slot and he arrived at 8.30pm. It didn't take long to unload the green boxes. Then we unloaded the carrier bags from said boxes.



The driver seemed to know that this was my first time playing the home delivery game so he explained how it works, how the billing works, etc. I signed his virtual paperwork and off he trundled.

The first point to make here was the immense number of carrier bags. When ordering online, there was an option to just have delivery in green boxes and unload at home. I would use this option next time as what I would use 6 for, they used just under 20. Having said that, the online system reckoned there would be 7 bags saved. Ha!

The second point to make is that everything I asked for arrived - no substitutions, which was good! I was missing one item (I ordered 2 and only 1 turned up) but after a call to their customer services department, I have had that refunded (and received an email to the same effect too).

The third and major point is that nothing was dented! I imagined home delivery picking staff picked up the dented tins. Not my picker! Whether this was just because it was my first shop and they were trying to give a good impression or whether this is standard practise, I do not know. But I was impressed!

Overall

Overall, it was a good experience. I imagined it would all go Pete Tong with either the driver being too early/late, tins being dented and a lot of shopping to be substituted. But no, everything was fine.

Would I use them again? Yes and no. I would only if it was worth my while. Bonus clubcard points could do it if they were reasonable (1000 extra points rather than 10 for instance). A discount equal to or greater than the delivery charge would make me do it too, though I would be more interested in the bonus points as I'm sure I could find a Tesco grocery discount voucher code on the web.

For me, the delivery charge is the stumbling block. It doesn't cost me £4-£6 to pop down to my local Asda. I don't mind shopping as I'm a tactile person. I prefer to touch and feel my shopping to make sure nothing has been damaged, dented, bruised, etc. You can't do that on the Internet - you have to trust your delivery shopper.

Nevertheless, a good experience and one that was pleasant to try.