Online groceries query

[XFool]

I am new to online grocery shopping. Because of the current situation I tried it last week, with Sainsbury's. Didn't go too well, for obvious reasons.

I'm trying to understand how this works - Sainsbury's online system seems not to report if item is 'Out of Stock' while others, e.g. Morrison's, do. This means I cannot depend on Sainsbury's to reliably supply food online. Normally, one item dropped might be an inconvenience, but half the items missing in the present case is more than "an inconvenience".

Does anyone with experience of say, Morrisons system, know if their 'OoS', or otherwise, can be relied upon. Especially in the current case.

I had expected (wrongly?) that online would be a parallel system to a supermarket's shelf stacking but, if it simply means their employees go around picking stuff off the shop shelves to order, that rather undermines the whole scheme at present, AFAICS.

TIA

[kempiejon]

I don't think there is live availability for supermarket shops, some customers are placing orders a week in advance. I know both Sainsburys and Morrisons send pickers round the store taking items of shelves, I'd think most Tesco and Asda do this too, Ocado are centralised not sure about Amazon pantry.
When I worked at Sainsbury about 7 years back I knew how the system worked and I recon if you booked a morning delivery you'd be more likely to get all items as the shelves are stocked over night and the pickers come in early before the store opens to ensure your shop is ready to be loaded and delivered before lunch. The pickers are then out in the morning again and afternoon competing with shoppers collecting items for the afternoon and evening deliveries. The pickers can get access to back of shop stocks though.

[XFool]

I don't think there is live availability for supermarket shops, some customers are placing orders a week in advance. I know both Sainsburys and Morrisons send pickers round the store taking items of shelves, I'd think most Tesco and Asda do this too, Ocado are centralised not sure about Amazon pantry.

So there cannot be a live 'Out of Stock', it may be an 'OoS' wrt their main stockroom or warehouse.

When I worked at Sainsbury about 7 years back I knew how the system worked and I recon if you booked a morning delivery you'd be more likely to get all items as the shelves are stocked over night and the pickers come in early before the store opens to ensure your shop is ready to be loaded and delivered before lunch. The pickers are then out in the morning again and afternoon competing with shoppers collecting items for the afternoon and evening deliveries.

More expensive delivery though! That's why I chose an evening delivery. But something to bear in mind.

The pickers can get access to back of shop stocks though.

That is what I had hoped.

Thanks for the information, kempiejon.

[csearle]

I think, as you alluded to, that whatever level of service you get at the moment is probably not representative.

Stay safe,
Chris

[AF62]

I'm trying to understand how this works - Sainsbury's online system seems not to report if item is 'Out of Stock' while others, e.g. Morrison's, do.

Most supermarkets pick off the shelf of your nearest supermarket so have no idea whether there will be stock there when the picker arrives so cannot have an 'out of stock' indicator (unless it is something that is out of stock at the warehouse.

Some Morrisons's deliveries are done from Ocado's distribution centres and some from local stores. For the later then as before they will have no idea of the stock levels, but for the former they should be able to predict whether the stock will be there when they need it for your order.

Some of the supermarket chains are opening 'dark stores', not fully automated like Ocado, but locations which are effectively warehouses not open to customers from which home deliveries are made, and again with those you are more likely to get what you ordered as they can predict better.

[gryffron]

Most supermarkets pick off the shelf of your nearest supermarket so have no idea whether there will be stock there when the picker arrives so cannot have an 'out of stock' indicator

Nonetheless, they do exactly that! Asda are the same.

It seems very strange to me that the online system prevents you from selecting things that are out-of-stock in the store right now, even if your delivery is in 3 weeks time. Surely the stock situation should have changed by then? Unless they know something they're not telling us?

Mind you, you can always book a future slot now, and edit the selections the day before delivery.

I agree that historically online deliveries have been pretty good. Although right now pretty much all are suffering from poor stock levels in the stores. Don't forget you can agree or not to subsitutions (where available), and even suggest suitable substitutes on most sites.

Gryff

[Stompa]

Mind you, you can always book a future slot now...

I wish!

[DrFfybes]

I know Morissons have a backstore here of core goods, but I often see "pickers" wandering around the fresh section.

Obviously at the moment stock levels are massively in flux.

It only takes a couple of hundred people in your area to be suddenly working from home so rather than nip to Greggs they buy an extra loaf and 5 tins of soup for the next week. This can strip a supermarket shelf, which then leads to people panic buying anything in a tin.

Not sure who was buying all the lychees though.

Paul

[didds]

I heard yesterday that allegedly one online order requested tampons which were out of stock - so were substituted for ...


....


sausage rolls.

Obviously.

didds

[didds]

It only takes a couple of hundred people in your area to be suddenly working from home so rather than nip to Greggs they buy an extra loaf and 5 tins of soup for the next week.

absolutely.

Take a household of 4 adults (ie two adult children living at home still) now all WFH/SI etc...

now youve got 7 x 3 meals per week plus snacks to provide and not - possibly - just 7 x 1 with people (maybe) normally buying breakfast and lunch on the hoof normally (eg from greggs, macdonalds, work canteens etc)


didds

[Clariman]

Just a note for anyone trying ASDA online shopping. I had no problem booking a slot a couple of weeks out, but after payment authorisation I kept getting an error message saying "Unable to save your details" or similar words. This was when doing it on a PC. However, I saw some tips online that say it works fine in the ASDA app. So I downloaded that and was able to complete the transactions - sadly after losing a couple of days worth of free delivery slots. However, it is comforting to know that we should get restocked on 10th April all being well.

C

[neversay]

I have Morrisons slots arranged for this Wednesday and next Wednesday. However, as I was originally placing the orders (1-2 weeks ago) items were going out of stock. I'd log in to amend the order then other items on my order would disappear.

Do I risk logging in again to add items to my order and, in doing so, risk losing what is in there because of the stock fluctuations? (And, even if I do, will I receive anything like what I actually select?)

This is proving to be quite a dilemma.

[didds]

I may have misunderstood but presumably they'll try and honour your order made on day 1 on day X ie delivery day?

If they have none of item A then they'll swap it out presumably. I can't see that they'd swap out A _today_ if its unavaiolable when delivery isnt for some time in the future when it may in tiock? that would be daft? woudnt it?

didds

[Stompa]

I have Morrisons slots arranged for this Wednesday and next Wednesday. However, as I was originally placing the orders (1-2 weeks ago) items were going out of stock. I'd log in to amend the order then other items on my order would disappear.

Do I risk logging in again to add items to my order and, in doing so, risk losing what is in there because of the stock fluctuations? (And, even if I do, will I receive anything like what I actually select?)

I don't know about Morrisons, but my experience with Tesco so far is as follows.

I initially placed an order, and was subsequently able to log in, click on the 'Make changes' button and amend the order as required. Once you have made some changes you have two options 'Cancel changes' or 'Checkout'. It all worked pretty well.

When you first log in you are only shown the 'guide price'. After a few days (but still 10+ days prior to the delivery date) I logged in and noticed that this 'guide price' had fallen drastically so, assuming some items had disappeared, I clicked on 'Make changes' to see which they were, and many items were indeed shown as unavailable. At this point the only option offered was 'Checkout' (perhaps there was no 'Cancel changes' because I hadn't made any changes?), and when I clicked on 'Checkout' all those unavailable items were removed from my basket. Perhaps I could have retained them if I'd added an item, then hit 'Cancel changes', or even simply closed the browser?

Anyway I've now decided to do a final amendment the evening before delivery, and hope for the best.

This is proving to be quite a dilemma.

Indeed. Since future delivery slots seem virtually impossible to find, I've pretty much resigned myself to having to continue physically visiting the supermarket.

[neversay]

I may have misunderstood but presumably they'll try and honour your order made on day 1 on day X ie delivery day?

If they have none of item A then they'll swap it out presumably. I can't see that they'd swap out A _today_ if it is unavailable when delivery isnt for some time in the future when it may in tiock? that would be daft? woudnt it?

didds

It's the difference between 'online stock levels' and the 'store stock' levels, e.g:

Day 1 - create online order for a loaf of bread, a chicken and x other items.
Day 3 - log in to amend online order, the loaf of bread and chicken are 'out of stock' so I select different (more expensive) loaf and y other items including the chicken are removed from the basket.
Day 6 - log in to amend online order, all bread showing out of stock - so I can't add any bread - and the other y items still not available (and the original order doesn't meet the required order value).

Are you saying the trick is to just leave the items that go 'out of stock' (online) in your basket and hope they have replacements?

It's a strange randomised shopping experience.

@Stompa - thanks for your observation. The online shopping solutions are surprisingly dysfunctional in these circumstances.

[didds]

I dont kinow of any trick. I wasnt understandiong why one would change the order in mid stream so to speak.

If you order loaf A on Monday, for delivery Sunday, but have a look on Thursday to see loaf A isnt available ... Im not understanding why that woud mean that loaf A woudnt be available on Sunday? It just means its out of stock on Thursday?

I am maybe still missing some nuance

[neversay]

I dont kinow of any trick. I wasnt understandiong why one would change the order in mid stream so to speak.

If you order loaf A on Monday, for delivery Sunday, but have a look on Thursday to see loaf A isnt available ... Im not understanding why that woud mean that loaf A woudnt be available on Sunday? It just means its out of stock on Thursday?

I am maybe still missing some nuance

The nuance is if you log-on to amend your order (say add a tin of soup) then items already in your basket that are out of stock get removed. If the whole category (say bread) was out of stock pnline then you can't re-add one of that product type. If you hadn't tried to amend the order to add soup then at least you had a virtual loaf in your basket that, on delivery day could have been back in physical stock and delivered. I'll part this here though as we are probably straying beyond the bounds of a DAK thread.

[jackdaww]

i have been using asda with some success .

manged to get a recurring delivery slot ok .

i copy last weeks order in 5 days before , and then review/amend the day before delivery .

[didds]

all understood now. Its a "feature" of the software

cheers

didds

[XFool]

Since future delivery slots seem virtually impossible to find, I've pretty much resigned myself to having to continue physically visiting the supermarket.

Yep, me too now. This wasn't the plan, I was planning on being self-isolating, as over seventy. It isn't working.

I just wasted my time registering with ASDA, I'm afraid the online shopping systems have effectively collapsed where I am.

I am already registered with Sainsbury's and they say they are prioritising slots for over seventies etc. Great! But, they also say they "Do not know you are over 70" so that's of no use - they do still provide Click & Collect. They also provide a number to ring - customer service - to let them know if you are a priority customer. Trouble is... you guessed it!

I still have no working fridge.