Sunday 11 September 2011

Waitrose v Ocado - which one is better - Part 1

We have been long term users of Ocado's delivery service - over five years, I think. Now that Waitrose has decided to make delivery free for orders over £50, which is less than my normal delivery, and Ocado charges me around £10 a month for deliveries over £40 each, for I have decided to give Waitrose a try for a month and see what I think. I believe it will take that long to become sufficiently familiar with the Waitrose site as opposed to Ocado.

So far:

  • Multiple search on Ocado is incredibly useful. I often start by putting in my shopping list, knowing that the categories can be sorted by Favourites first means that I usually see the things I want early
  • Ability to edit Favourites on Ocado is very useful
  • Suggested order from Ocado also very useful. I never order everything, but it is a great reminder.
  • Browsing through by pressing "Next" button for next category very handy on Ocado, as opposed to going to the top of the page, clicking on a (not very obvious) drop-down menu in Waitrose.
  • Ocado site looks like it was designed for usability, Waitrose looks like a web designer was showing off
So far (and this is only one order), Ocado is looking like it is in the lead. It took me nearly 45 minutes to place my first order on Waitrose, it normally takes well under 15 on Ocado. And that order was around half of the normal order value. That is at least two hours a month, and I think my time is worth more than £5 / hr.

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