Waitrose tops online supermarket survey
(01 March 2007)

Waitrose has been adjudged to be the most popular online supermarket with consumers in terms of customer satisfaction.

A survey by which.co.uk found that 69 per cent of respondents said they were very satisfied with the service offered by the chain, with a separate 64 per cent professing themselves to be similarly pleased with Ocado – also responsible for selling Waitrose products.

However, there was less welcome news for two of the bigger name stores, with Asda and Sainsbury's propping up the bottom of the table with 24 and 30 per cent satisfaction ratings respectively.

The main issues for online supermarket shoppers were to do with food quality and the substitution of out of stock items, with vegetables a particular problem. Just one in five of those questioned thought Sainsbury's and Tesco had a "very good" standard of fruit and vegetable quality.

"It's no surprise that Waitrose and Ocado have emerged as clear favourites in the battle of the online supermarkets – shopping online is all about convenience, and our survey shows that people don’t mind paying a bit extra if they know they'll get good quality products and service in return," said Malcolm Coles, editor of which.co.uk.

Last year Waitrose, Ocado, Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco were all told by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to provide better price information following complaints from customers regarding discrepancies between prices online and charges upon delivery.