Online grocers fail to deliver

Supermarkets are failing their Internet customers, industry experts said yesterday.

Shoppers were often charged for missing items and offered poor substitutes for unavailable goods, researchers found.

None of the six major online grocery sites could deliver a shopping list of 33 everyday items on time and in full.

In one instance, Sainsbury's charged a shopper twice for a £6.98 bottle of red wine.

Although it tried to refund half the cost, it ended up doubling it so the shopper was overcharged by £13.96.

It also delivered bacon which was not ordered, while Tesco charged for coffee and laundry tablets which never arrived.

Iceland, which could offer only 26 of the requested items, substituted the other seven with similar products but then charged the most - a total of £45.15.

Sainsbury's was the cheapest at £38.71 but was let down by the overcharging problems.

Logging on to stores' websites took as little as one minute for Tesco and up to 14 minutes for Iceland, the survey showed. Ordering the full grocery list took between 45 minutes with Asda to more than two hours with Waitrose.

Orders were placed by shoppers for trade magazine The Grocer, which said: 'Retailers found it difficult to cope, with payment mistakes and long waits for delivery.'

A Sainsbury's spokeswoman said: 'We work very hard to make sure our customers are happy with their deliveries.'