WHEN Fiona Campbell, one of London’s top commercial lawyers, turned to the internet to buy her Christmas groceries she was hoping to avoid the trouble of visiting a supermarket at the busiest time of year.
However, Campbell and thousands of other shoppers have had their high-technology hopes for Christmas shopping dashed. When her Sainsbury’s delivery arrived, Campbell was amazed to find the luxury turkey she ordered had been replaced with a cheaper alternative. The supermarket charged her for the superior bird.
Sainsbury’s, which had almost a week to process the order, also said it did not have the Coca-Cola she required, or a gammon joint, or sweetcorn.
“Very significant items that we had ordered for our Christmas celebrations were missing, which we found very annoying and frustrating,” said Campbell. “We decided to shop online after seeing Sainsbury’s adverts, but quite frankly we should not have bothered. It put us to greater inconvenience and expense than taking the day off to shop.”
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the government’s consumer watchdog, is to step in after receiving a series of complaints, including one from Campbell. Yesterday, the OFT confirmed it was investigating supermarkets’ online services and was holding “confidential discussions” with the retailers.
Online shopping in Britain is booming, with an estimated £15 billion expected to be spent on the web this year. Although slow to take off, supermarkets’ online services are now among the most popular, particularly at Christmas.
In the first half of the year, Tesco sold goods worth £307m online, a 27% rise compared with the same period in 2003. Its online profits jumped 95% to £15m. Next year the supermarket is tipped to become the first British retailer to sell goods worth more than £1 billion on the internet.
Consumers register to join a supermarket’s online service and are then offered the full range of products available in stores. It typically takes about 30 to 40 minutes to complete a weekly shop, as shoppers browse pictures of the items on offer and select the quantities of each grocery required.
Shoppers then book a one-hour delivery slot — say, between 7pm and 8pm — and pay up to £5.99 for delivery. After placing an order, a supermarket employs a “picker” to go around the local store and collect the items ordered. A van is then dispatched from the store to drop off the groceries.
However, crucially, the online prices shown are only “guide prices” and the actual price paid can vary significantly depending on the cost of the item in the local store.
Sainsbury’s refuses to refund the difference if shoppers are charged more than expected for the item they have ordered, and Tesco only issues refunds if customers believe it is an “unacceptable” difference — which is not defined. Prices change constantly in stores so it can be difficult to assess whether consumers are being misled.
A recent survey of members of Which?, the consumer organisation, also identified a string of other complaints about the online shopping services. Of particular concern was the practice of supermarkets “substituting” items for delivery. The main supermarket websites are not “real-time” and therefore do not reveal whether items are available or out of stock.
The supermarkets admit on their websites they cannot guarantee ordered goods will be available but promise their pickers will find the nearest appropriate substitute. In some cases, the pickers miss out an item if no substitute is available. The supermarkets say shoppers are free to reject substitutes upon delivery but must “allow” four weeks for a refund to be made. People must also rely on delivery drivers to point out the substitutes offered.
A survey of more than 1,500 online shoppers found 88% of people shopping on the Sainsbury’s website “generally” found their orders contained substituted items. More than 75% of Tesco shoppers had items substituted, as did 71% at Asda. By contrast, the figure for Ocado, the online service offered by Waitrose, was just 35%. Of all those who had received substituted items, more than 40% thought the alternative products provided were generally “poor”.
Shoppers also complain that they pay for items to be delivered that do not materialise, yet supermarkets fail to refund the delivery costs, normally £5 a time. They also allege that in some cases they have been charged for more expensive items than those they received.
The trouble of returning perishable goods to the store and arguing the case deters many from complaining — and any problems usually have to be made clear on the doorstep when the delivery is made.
Among shoppers who have found the “substituted” items woefully inadequate is Joyce Walter, who ordered yellow peppers from Tesco but received bananas. Kit Heald, a vegetarian, ordered vegeburgers but was sent chicken burgers.
Another Sainsbury’s customer, a solicitor from southeast London, said: “There have been problems. Sometimes particular products that I ordered were replaced with others without any prior warning or consultation. Items are out of stock and so you don’t get everything delivered but they don’t tell you — one Christmas I’d ordered quite a lot of bread but hardly any was delivered.”
Richard Spencer from Nottingham, who also shops online with Sainsbury’s, told Which?: “The worst order contained 16 replacements and almost all were inappropriate.”
Another common complaint is that supermarkets use their online services to offload stocks of food close to best-before dates. As most people use the services for weekly shops this can be a frustrating problem.
Fred Bolam, a Tesco customer, said: “We were sent products that were due out of date imminently, so we either had to consume all we’d ordered very quickly or throw it away.”
Tesco and Sainsbury’s confirmed they had been contacted by the OFT about their online services but declined to comment on the details of the watchdog’s investigation. Spokesmen for Waitrose and Asda said they were unaware of the inquiry.
The OFT’s investigation may be part of a campaign of action against the big supermarkets. It is reviewing how they treat suppliers and is due to report in January. The OFT is also being urged to investigate supermarkets’ purchase of chains of corner shops.
Additional reporting: Ozge Ibrahim and Venetia Lawson-Cruttenden
