At first I thought grocery shopping online in UK was an innovation ahead of North America. Now I see there are not as many as in the USA or Canada, but it is hard to determine further details. I'd be glad of more information from grocery shoppers who live in the United Kingdom and shop in via these grocery shopping sites.
Tesco delivers in UK only - in the vicinity of their stores. Tesco is a very large department shopping site, but seems to have little in the way of groceries. In fact, it refers mostly to placing your order online, and then going to your nearest grocery store to pick up your order yourself.
Perhaps Tesco is much better once you are registered as a shopper and you get access to more of the site.
OCADO is for UK residents shopping for groceries online; it promises to match prices of Tesco - but OCADO's site seems smaller. On further study of the site, I learn that OCADO was begun ten years ago by two young men in banking. They desire to be the greenest grocery retailer in the UK, and have already won a number of awards to prove they are. OCADO works in partnership with Waitrose, selling Waitrose products, and use the same standards, but delivering directly from a warehouse to grocery shoppers at home or work.
Waitrose is a major chain of grocery stores in the United Kingdom. This is a fairly large website complex with many departments. I cannot determine the precise areas to which they deliver groceries ordered online without entering a postal code (and mine in Canada would not do), but they say all deliveries are free. They handle deliveries from WaitroseDeliver.com.
Form and Field is a fine foods mail order company that specializes in fresh, traditional British meats and produce from small independent producers who pride themselves on excellence, and often do every step of their preparation by hand. They are in East London, in the same premises as their parent company, H. Forman and Son, which is over 100 years old.
(Nice to know, isn't it, that an old company like that is offering grocery shopping online in the UK).
The orders are delivered by overnight courier service on the United Kingdom's mainland and North Ireland. There is a base delivery charge of £9.95 but there are supplementary charges for certain areas or for earlier times of the day delivery. Check their website for details. They regret that they cannot send goods beyond the UK and Ireland. (Mind you, I see they include the Isle of Man, the Scottish Islands, Isles of Scilly, Eire and the Channel Islands).
I guess I don't dine in the finest restaurants or order expensive foods, otherwise, I should have known about some of these famous, perfect foods that come from the suppliers of Forman & Field's rich foods. (My goodness! The very best of smoked salmons!)
Look at this; "Seldom Seen are the makers of the 3 Bird Roast: a goose, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a pheasant. Each joint is made entirely by hand by Claire's expert team of pluckers, boners and stuffers. By special request she also makes stuffed chickens, ducks and partridges to the same exacting standards." Wow! You've got'a love the stories on their Suppliers' page!
There may be more online grocery shops in the UK, but I'll have to wait for YOU to tell me about them. Do you live in the UK and order from these sites? Or another one? How do you like their service?
How do you feel about grocery shopping online in the UK?
Do you find there are some limitations to balance the conveniences?