Be Excellent To Each Other

Need to order shopping online. I am tired and my head feels like it is full of those little polystyrene balls that beanbags are usually filled with.

So, which of these is the least rubbish:







Why is that colon there? The poll is above. Go on, look up there.

I've only used Asda and only for the last couple of months, but I've had next to no problems with them. A couple of late deliveries, both of which they called me to warn me about, one box of eggs with a couple broken, a couple of mildly annoying substitutions. A small price to pay for getting an hour and a half of my weekend back, to be honest.

I've only used Tesco, so I can't vote (I've use Ocado, but they won't deliver to you, I remember you saying).
We've discussed this on this forum before...

[edit]Aha - viewtopic.php?f=3&t=402&hilit=ocado

To be honest I have only used Asda before, and they are lazy and unhelpful, and Tesco, who just messed the order up.

I am finding it hard to think today

I switched from Tesco to Sainsbury's and haven't looked back. Brilliant service all round.

Oh, yes

I am going to give Sainsburys a go.

not thried them yet.

Everyone says that Ocado is nice, but they don't deliver to Lancaster. I remember having this conversation now, but I thought it was on another site as I thought I was discussing it with other women.

MAKE SURE you specify your substitues preferences on your shopping basket. i.e. whether you're happy with a near-alternative, or if you'd rather not have it if they haven't got it.

Sainsburys are dandy imo, but you do need to specify this. In the past I've had substitues for specific things I've wanted that were just *poo*.

But you can refuse any substitutions they make at the door. You're not stuck with them. I leave them on and send back anything that doesn't work.

Tesco once substituted free-range chicken for normal chicken, and the man was a bit taken aback that we didn't want it.
I tried to explain it was a moral thing but I don't think he really got it.

Guys! Guys! Mimi called you all girls!

Too much faff, checking through everything on the doorstep, and then picking out things to return. Lots of unhappy hassle. Also, the vendor can't possibly assume you've checked through everything before the driver asks you to sign, so I have zero tolerance if I have cause to complain and they say something like 'you should have told the driver at the time!'.

Only chickens that get eaten in the Grim... household had nice fields to run about in (yeah, I know they didn't really, but they had a hell of a lot better time than any factory-farmed chicken).

I resemble that remark.

The Tesco man tells you when he arrives, and it's substituted items are detailed at the top of your order sheet.

Grim..., I think the question marks were because it sounded as if you got uppity about being given a free range chicken when you'd asked for a battery farmed one, mate...

"It's a moral thing. I want my chickens to have suffered goddamnit".

I meant general cockups, things missing, etc.

Oh, right.
I'd also like to say that it tastes exactly the same.

They tell you the subs on the doorstep. It's the first thing they do.

I think the maximum I've ever had is two items and normally don't have any. They even put them in special blue bags so you can see them without going through all your other shopping.

It's no hassle at all.

Takes one to know one.

So's your face.

Mmmm.

Someone from Tesco once tried to substitute some butter with some yoghurt.

Not another brand of butter, but a yoghurt.



Also, Instead of bringing gnocchi they bought salmon with a lemon butter?

Tesco substitutions were always very random for me. Sainsbury's ones seem a lot more sensible so far.

I agree with Rev Owen about Sainsbury's. We use their internet shopping quite often and it's really very good. The delivery guy will also take away the old carrier bags from previous deliveries (they do use a LOT of bags) and put them in for recycling*. One neat thing that I found is that if you buy things in the real-life shop and use your nectar card, they will appear in your recently purchased items in the online list too. Not very clever or hard to implement, but I thought it was cool, saved me having to search for trifle sponges and jam


*I hope. That's what they told us they do with them.

Haaang on. They deliver it to your house in a van, and it's in bags anyway? Isn't that missing a vital point somewhere?

In what way?
Ocado deliver in colour-coordinated bags - blue for the freezer, green for the fridge, etc.

Thinking about it, you can request that Tesco don't use bags.

Well, surely the plastic bags are needed for people* to take groceries from the store to their car and then from the car into the kitchen.
If the stuff is being brought to your door, wouldn't it be sensible to miss out the bag part, and simply get the man to dump the whole lot onto your kitchen counter? I mean it'll be in a tray anyway won't it, they can't just have it all in bags loose in the back of the van.

I dunno, it just seems like unnecessary waste. As usual.

* (who are too lazy to take a bag or a box themselves)

They're in bags in trays. They bring the trays into your kitchen, then put the bags where you tell them. Having them tip your shopping loose into your kitchen would either takes ages or end up breaking things, surely?

We always saved the bags and gave them back to the delivery man next time.

Shopping bags = free bin liners.

It must be nice to have a kitchen counter big enough for a week's shopping.

Yeah, this: it sounded (to me at least) like Grim...'s original post was backwards.

Environmentally conscious FTFY.

If they are the tough reusable bags, and they are reusing them, fair enough. Otherwise you might as well wrap your rubbish with them because I doubt the recycling process for those is terribly clever.

Still, I suppose in theory having your shopping delivered is at least better than everyone driving their individual range-rovers to the store to buy their individually wrapped products..

I did it more to get rid of them than to stroke my conscience about recycling, if I'm honest.



It was a 4-mile round-trip walk for me, because I wasn't driving at that point. I don't mind the walk (Tesco was right next to my work, so I was walking it anyway), but carrying shopping that distance was a nightmare. For a fiver, getting it delivered was always the preferred option.

Before Marks and Spencer started their massive drive to help save the planet by not giving away plastic bags with your shopping, even hinting at the merest suggestion that you might like one of their 'free' carrier bags was met with looks liek you were a naked leper, rubbing your scab infested nether regions upon the cashier's faces.

Now that they have started charging for them, though, it is a different matter. going in for a couple of items: "do you want a carrier bag with that (hands over two bags) they are five pence each". If you say no, you don't need one, they look at you shiftily again (what I was buying had it's own handle, it didn't need a bag) "so you're just going to carry it like that, are you?. They are so determined to flog you one of their air-thin carrier bags now (or a bag for life, which split the first time I put a box of biscuits in it, last time I used one) that they try and push them on you every time you go in there.

I do not mind them actually charging for carriers if they are good quality bags and it is for the reasons of genuinely trying to help the environment, but it's just sheer hypocrisy for them to claim that to be the case when they know that they are charging five pence for a bag thinner than a cheap condom which must cost a fraction of a penny for them to manufacture, and as the prices of their produce has not been lowered, is already factored into your shopping, anyway, and they are so desperate for you to take a bag. "Oh, forgotten a bag have you? These are five pence now, take them, take them!"

I like the Sainsbury's bags for life best, they actually have the ability to contain shopping for a few consecutive trips.

Also, I agree with whoever mentioned using old carrier bags for household waste. I use them to line my bin at home and take the rubbish out every couple of days. The kitchen in my flat is far too small for a large bin and these bags are just fine. To me it makes far more sense than actually spending money on specially manufactured bags just for the purpose of holding household waste. I know for a big family they must be very handy, but for me the small carriers are just fine.

Kalmar, the delivery people (from any supermarkets we have used) have never attempted to bring our shopping into the house for us, so they'd have to empty it into the street if we never had bags, and let us carry it all in, an item at a time. I think the service varies greatly from area to area

That was me. We use them for the small bins in the kitchen and Olly's room (for nappies). Very, very handy. If the shops stopped giving them away fro free we'd just have to be buying binliners, so noones saving the planet there.

I have a large kitchen and we use these bin bags that fit the bin that Mrs A bought and that bin she is inordinately proud of.

Funny coves, wimmin.

We've got about 8 of these, they're extremely solid. We use them for all kinds of bag-holding related stuff.

My experiences:

I've ordered once each from Tesco and Sainsbury's. Tesco cancelled my order after their payment page fucked up, but didn't tell me they'd done this. The first I knew of it was when I called to find out why my shopping hadn't turned up. I declined their offer to re-place the order to be delivered two days later.

Sainsbury's were fine, but called me the day before delivery to say that as it was my first order and was "quite large" (it was only about £90, but fair enough), I'd need to show the delivery driver some photo-ID, a utility bill with my address on, and the card I'd used to pay for the order. Seemed a bit over-the-top, but not a problem. However, when I tried to show these to the delivery guy, he looked at me like I was mad and said he didn't need to see any of that. I explained I'd been told to show him them, and he said he'd never heard of that before and made some disparaging comment about his call-centre-based colleagues.

Generally, Ocado are excellent, so it's a shame that's not an option for you.

CBA reading this thread, you've probably ordered by now, but software wise Sainsburys is the best. Cheapness/selection and whatever is the same as in store. Tesco used to deliver fine when we got it. I imagine they're all the same though.

I third this. Although, the Ocado bags I think better.

In my experience of ordering online, Ocado > Sainsbury's > Tesco > Asda. Tesco's site in particular has always been as buggy as fuck.

edit: I've just gone there for AceAceBaby, but sorry, I can't actually use the Search function or Browse the groceries after logging in, I just get asked to confirm downloading 'search.asp'. Sigh.

They have Pura stuff at £1.07 per litre or soya stuff for 80p litre. Can't see any really cheap stuff on there.

Stock up? On that much vegetable oil? Do you mind if I ask why?

Probably makes him feel sexy.

On the basis of this thread I am reminded that you *can* actually order online, with the added bonus of seeing how much it costs before you buy it, and being able to think really hard about what you want. That been the case, I'm currently about £90 into my own order for various bits n' bobs.

It must be nice to have a week's shopping.

Iceland were good when I was in London. They're a very underrated supermarket, though their fresh stuff is generally a rubbish selection. Good for stocking up on frozen meat and side dishes as well as less perishable stuff like crackers, sauces and cereals.

I'm guessing 'diesel car'.

Hah, yeah, I do most of my shopping roughly once every 2 days in the Tesco express.

Really?