internet

http://www.ocado.com

You may have seen their vans populating our roads but just who are Ocado and how good is their home shopping service?

Ocado sells Waitrose products but is not a part of it.  This means that food is not picked from the supermarket shelf but sourced centrally before the food gets to the supermarket.  That means you should get food that has a longer 'sell by' date and, hopefully, has not been too 'manhandled' before it gets to you.

If you are new to Ocado, begin by going to the site above and registering to see if they deliver to you and then you are ready to shop.

The virtual aisles are accessed from a central page that we soon got used to although it does take a little time to drill down to the items that you want and some items are a little hard to find.  However, having used the service several times, we soon found that we got used to it and shopping proceeded smoothly and quickly.

The checkout is efficient and, after a few visits, you get a screen to remind you of items previously purchased

The shopping cart works well and items were added quickly and the totals adjusted instantly.  The shopping basket is accessible at all times showing the last few items purchased but, on asking, a list will be quickly produced showing all your choices.

The checkout is efficient and, after a few visits, you get a screen to remind you of items previously purchased that may have been forgotten.  Although intended to keep you spending, we found this to be a very useful feature.

Delivery charges are modest at a few pounds (with some free).  Minimum orders are £40 (£75 to quality for the lesser delivery charge) so we shop each fortnight as suggested in our three previous articles.

Delivery has been perfect with shopping brought to the kitchen table and the old bags taken away for recycling. 

To date, all goods arrived in excellent condition, with acceptable sell-by dates and so far we have only had one substituted purchase.  The delivery people arrived on time and have always been pleasant and obliging.

At the time of writing, prices on some items are pegged to the Tesco price and this is shown as you shop. 

We found the service perfect for online shopping and are currently using it ourselves so we think this is a good shopping service and one that we can recommend. 

Tags: food, review, shopping