HAVING groceries delivered direct to your door is the perfect way to avoid a tiresome trolley dash, long queues and heavy shopping bags.

Figures released by Mintel reveal Brits are trading trolleys for direct-to-door distribution, with 29% of UK online grocery shoppers buying their food more online now than 12 months ago.

And web tills are ringing as a result, with grocery sales set to reach £9.8bn this year and forecast to reach £15bn by 2020.

“Online grocery shopping is the method of choice for a lot of people because it fits with their busy lifestyles,” explained retail expert Clare Rayner.

“Half-an-hour on the computer sees it all done for you and delivered straight to your door at a time that suits.”

But when it comes to meeting our high customer service standards, which supermarkets actually deliver? We tested them with interesting results.

Supermarket: Asda

COST – Between £1 and £6, depending on slot time.

HOW EASY IS IT TO USE? We found everything with ease – and there’s a search facility if you’re looking for something specific.
Delivery slots are in two hour blocks – double the time range of competitors – and a bit of a pain if you have things to do.

OUR ORDER: Our shopping list included a couple of dinners and lunches. We opted for 8-10am on a Thursday, setting us back £4.
The delivery turned up about 8.45am and the driver was very personable and pleasant. He even flipped open the box of eggs to check they hadn’t been smashed in transit! Egg-scellent.
Thankfully there were no substitutions, though the lettuce and milk were a bit of a let-down, with just a day or two before their best-by date.

DEALS: Asda offers seasonal delivery passes. £8 for one month and £60 for the year.

VERDICT Overall a good, reliable and friendly service. 7/10

Supermarket: Sainsbury’s

COST – Orders over £40 are charged a delivery fee of between £1 and £7. Orders under £40 will be charged a maximum delivery fee of £7.

HOW EASY IS IT TO USE? Site is relatively easy to navigate and delivery slots were largely available from 10am until 11pm. We booked a midweek 8-9pm costing £2.

OUR ORDER: Cost around £40 and contained top up items, such as milk, bread and fruit, as well as few special deals, such as luxury snacks that wouldn’t ordinarily be on the shopping list.
The driver arrived 45 minutes early because he was ‘hoping for an early finish’…just as well we were in! What’s the point in booking a slot if they want to deliver outwith?
He made up for the promptness by bringing everything into the kitchen and unpacking the crates though. Disappointingly, the fresh rolls were rock hard and we got a bashed tin of soup.

DEALS: Pay £60 for 12 months, £35 for six and £20 for three – and you can get one free delivery a day. The midweek pass is half the price.

VERDICT Overall good, but let down by not sticking to the slot – and leaving us without a roll for lunch. 6/10.

Supermarket: Tesco

COST – Slots from £1 on orders over £40.

HOW EASY IS IT TO USE? Totally user-friendly website from the UK’s biggest supermarket, whose long expertise showed. Pretty standard one-hour delivery slots available with the Thursday teatime one costing £4.

OUR ORDER: A fairly full shop coming to just over £80.
The driver showed up right in the middle of the hour slot and was friendly, chatty and offered to put the bags on the worktop.
She told us that the chicken breast fillets had a use by date just two days ahead. And there were no strawberries and “no appropriate substitution”. How can Tesco have no strawberries?

DEALS: You can pay £60 for the year and get as many deliveries, with the usual £40 minimum spend, as you like.

VERDICT Good service but our cream was missing something to go on. 7/10

Supermarket: Waitrose

COST – Free with shops over £60.

HOW EASY IS IT TO USE? Straight-forward shopping experience — search for bread and it shows you all the bread they sell.
There’s no next-day delivery, unfortunately, so you’ll have to plan ahead. A two-hour Friday evening slot was free with a shop over £60.

OUR ORDER: Along with household staples like bread, rice and pasta we ordered some items with a short life, like salads, yoghurts and cold meat.
We needn’t have worried, everything had plenty of days left. Even the bread had a whopping five days’ life.
The driver — in a dapper shirt and tie — was on time, friendly and funny…especially for someone working a Friday evening.

DEALS: £60 off your first three online shops.

VERDICT: You can see why Which? voted classy supermarket Waitrose the best online delivery experience. 9/10

Hang on — online is still miles behind…

ONLINE shopping still has a long way to go before it matches the real experience of wandering around your favourite supermarket.

That’s the view of Phillip Adcock, the UK’s foremost “shopologist”.

Marketing guru Phillip studies the psychology behind retail and advises top shopping chains on how to attract customers, and keep their money coming back.

And he branded the websites of all the major supermarkets as “shockingly bad”.

“Shoppers have to use what is essentially a glossed-up spreadsheet created by IT professionals rather than one created around an enjoyable supermarket experience,” he explained.

“The problem is the websites were all designed by techy people rather than retail-minded experts.

“They looked at the success of Amazon and thought that people wanted to shop by looking at a list of pictures. But it’s not true!”

Phillip, author of Shoppology: The Science of Supermarket Shopping, explained how the rush to provide online shopping has led to supermarkets losing money on every delivery.

“Our research shows that each delivery costs supermarkets around £5,” he said. “None of them wanted to be left behind — doing online was a bit of kneejerk decision.

“How do they make money? Aside from customer loyalty they sell those banner ads at the top of the page to big brands.

“The brands pay £30,000 for the privilege. Research shows these big ads have very few clicks!”

From drones to self-ordering fridges: the future…

There have been improvements in online shopping — a drive-through click-and-collect service, for instance — but there are many more innovations in the pipeline.

Internet shopping giant Amazon has struck a deal with Morrison’s to deliver food, which they’re expected to begin by 2017.

Amazon are currently testing using airborne drones to deliver products.

But even the websites we use will change.

“We like to walk down aisles and scan for the products we’re buying,” said Phillip Adcock, the UK’s leading Shopologist. “It’s human nature to look for goods that way.

“Rather than scroll down a list of products we’re going to see virtual reality shops where we can travel down the aisles via our mouse.”

Retail expert Clare Rayner added: “It will eventually become like the milkman, with a subscription-style service.

“High-tech fridges will note if you’re low on salad and ask if you want to order some more.

“It sounds like science fiction, but it’s completely do-able – once the costs of the technology come down. It will change the way we buy our food.”

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