Tesco Lotus Launches Online Grocery

[isawasnake]

I'm seeing some definite differences between the Tesco offering and the Tops' one.

Tops Shop Online:

https://www.tops.co.th/topsshoponline/Index.aspx

Tesco: 60 baht delivery fee, regardless of the order

Tops: 150 baht per delivery fee, free if 1500b or more

Tesco: pay by bank card only, either online or at delivery

Tops: pay online or pay by card or cash upon delivery

Tesco: only second level English language product descriptions

Tops: full English language web site and product descriptions, much easier to navigate.

Tesco: no alcohol

Tops: alcohol

Tesco: next day delivery 7 days a week, morning to late night.

Tops: Orders before 1 pm delivered same day. Orders after 1 pm delivered next day.

Tesco: online ordering just BKK area for now

Tops: online ordering for BKK and quite a few other city locations.

The Tops online ordering registration process was more clunky to get through, though if you have a Spots rewards card and can fill in that number online as part of your registration, their system prefills a lot of your address and contact info, with what Tops already has in their system for you.

Tops Delivery.jpg

Tops Ordering 1.jpg

Tops Ordering 2.jpg

The free delivery (over 1500), cash payment on delivery, ABILITY TO BUY BOOZE, not to mention the English on the website... is all making this a VERY easy decision for me

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Do they (Tesco) haul it up to your door if you live in a condo, or do they like to call and leave it downstairs. Sorry if mentioned, I read a bunch and just decided to ask. Thanks.

I live on the second floor, with only stairs up to my home/front door.

The Tesco guy arrived with a metal two-wheel hand truck made for carrying the containers they use for carrying your items.

He took a look at trying to use the hand truck on the stairs, and then just decided to carry my two baskets upstairs and inside my home by hand.

Brought them into my kitchen, set them down inside, and then we proceeded to sort through the order items checklist one by one.

So generally, I think the answer to your first question is yes, they'll bring the items inside your home. (Our downstairs is locked of course, so I went down to meet the guy when he arrived, unlocked the gate, and directed him where to go upstairs.)

But if you lived on the 40th floor and the elevator was out that day, it might be a problem.

Edited April 9, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The free delivery (over 1500), cash payment on delivery, ABILITY TO BUY BOOZE, not to mention the English on the website... is all making this a VERY easy decision for me

Everyone has different priorities and preferences...

I rarely spend 1500b or more per order.

I rarely buy booze from the store to take home.

And I'd prefer to pay via bank card instead of cash.

So Tesco and their 60 baht flat delivery fee probably is a better fit for me.

But I do wish Tesco had the more English friendly elements of the Tops website.

And I am registered there now and looking forward to giving it a try next-time I have a suitable order to place.

Edited April 9, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[isawasnake]

My only comment is, I wonder why in god's holy name this isn't more popular. I have been using tops for a long while now, and it is great. BKK is just so hard to get around and lug things in the heat. To each their own, but this is a great service - I truly love it. Hats off to tesco, but I'll stick mostly to tops for now.

Edited April 9, 2013 by isawasnake

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Hard to know just how popular or not the Tops online ordering system is...

As best as I can see, Tops hasn't done much to market it. I shop in various of their stores regularly, and this past week was the first time I can recall ever seing any promotion about it (at their CentralWorld locale).

I see their delivery trucks out and around central Bangkok pretty regularly. But I guess I'd always assumed those were the result of phone in orders or in store orders where the customer asked for delivery after making their own selections. The online ordering option with Tops was a new one for me.

I don't have the habit of looking at most Thai retailer websites, as for the most part, they're usually out of date and pretty useless.

Edited April 9, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[isawasnake]

Hard to know just how popular or not the Tops online ordering system is...

As best as I can see, Tops hasn't done much to market it. I shop in various of their stores regularly, and this past week was the first time I can recall ever seing any promotion about it (at their CentralWorld locale).

I see their delivery trucks out and around central Bangkok pretty regularly. But I guess I'd always assumed those were the result of phone in orders or in store orders where the customer asked for delivery after making their own selections. The online ordering option with Tops was a new one for me.

I don't have the habit of looking at most Thai retailer websites, as for the most part, they're usually out of date and pretty useless.

It is not that hard. Nobody uses it. Thais probably few and far between, and I know at least 30 farang and 1 or 2 may use it. Then there is the fact that if people were in fact using it, they'd probably shut the program down because they could not handle it. I think a very small percentage uses it, in fact, the tesco article mentions this, how delivery is low here, but much higher in places like Korea (ie, where people actually are thinking). I mean what is not to love about it? I am happy it is not used ironically, I bet a lack of use results in faster and more reliable service. In thailand, when a company doubles their business, they usually dont quite double their resources (trucks in this case).

Edited April 9, 2013 by isawasnake

[farang000999]

So it costs 60 baht to not have to go grocery shopping?

Where is the "Thailand is not cheap" brigade.

[isawasnake]

So it costs 60 baht to not have to go grocery shopping?

Where is the "Thailand is not cheap" brigade.

Im so cheap i'll pay the 1500 worth of stuff I dont need to get the free delivery from tops. As long as the stuff I dont need is a couple of cases of beer.

[edgarfriendly]

i had a 10-12 delivery turn up today at 12 on the dot, called from outside our gate to ask where our house is???

he then drove to the end of the soi for 10 minutes and then came back but the doors were now on the wrong side(middle of the road) so he had to scoot off and do another u turn to get nice n cosy up to the gate.

out of 30+ items only 3 were slightly wrong, but replaced with very close equivalents.

everything was chilled at about 2-4C, the frozen bits were solid @ -18C.

its designed for ease of transport so the more you order the more plastic crates will be utilised. i had about 12 for 30+ things. like they do with the shoppin bags its 1 item or 2 per crate.lol.

i saved an extra 20 odd minutes by taking them inside and emptying them out while he scurried around bringing more crates and having me tick off each thing by its weight/price/unit #

400% cheaper than a taxi there and back.

no retarded 'banter' from the aforementioned taxi driver

so far so good, but the website is unsurprisingly gimp and needs some focused eyes on it.

i might give tops a go next...

all i need now is an online street price food court delivery.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

When I had my Tesco order a few days ago, they divided my 18 or so individual items into just three baskets -- two for my household goods and one for a refrigerated item, which was carried in the separate, refrig segment of the truck. When the driver brought them upstairs into my house, he dropped the one refrig item into one of the other baskets and thus just carried two baskets upstairs.

The baskets they're using are pretty good sized cartons, capable of holding quite a few different items, depending on their size.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Just noticed something useful:

Once you're logged into Tesco's shop online website, there's a search box in the upper right corner of the website.

Turns out, it works for the English language terms attached to the online store's product names, even though the initial product summary description you see on the website only shows Thai.

So you can enter search terms like "shampoo" or "Downy" or "Tipco" and it will return hits for those product listings.

Makes it a lot easier to look for a particular brand name item you want, instead of having wade thru the entire list of 300+ shampoo items, for example.

Edited April 10, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Just received my second Tesco Online delivery order this afternoon... 12:30 pm arrival for a noon to 2 pm delivery window. Same driver as my prior delivery, and my basket was the only basket he had in his truck coming from the Rama IV store.

Most of the things arrived fine, but I am beginning to notice some vagaries in their online product tracking/availability system, as follows:

Out of my order today, there were two items that were not delivered as I had ordered -- one was some bathroom cleaner, where the store substituted a different size and type of the same brand, and the other was a box of herbal tea, which wasn't delivered at all and the driver advised, out of stock.

And yet, after the driver left, I went back to the Tesco Online website just now and checked both of those two products that I had ordered, and they're both still today showing them in stock, just as they were yesterday when I placed my online order. So what gives about that???

I can only guess that perhaps, those products are in fact in stock at one of the various Tesco stores that are serving as the suppliers for the online ordering system, but apparently not at the Rama IV store that happens to service my area.

Or maybe the products simply are out of stock altogether, and their online system isn't being sufficiently updated to reflect that. Either way, not a very good situation.

But still, overall, a good experience.

While doing the online order yesterday, I sat down and compared a lot of my household shopping list on the Tesco website vs. the Tops online website. For my shopping list, what I found was that Tesco seemed to have more of the items I use/want in stock compared to Tops. And when they both stocked the same exact item, Tesco tended to have a pricing advantage more often (for more items) than Tops did.

Obviously, everyone uses and wants different things, so YMMV. But I'm ordering pretty basic stuff that many people I suspect would use in their households.

One thing that I think would be really good for Tesco to add to their service would be the option to set your account with them to either ALLOW or NOT ALLOW item substitutions by the store. If they allowed that option, I'd probably set my account to not allow store substitutions.

Meanwhile, here's a web banner add from the Tops site showing the areas outside BKK where they have delivery available, and that's one advantage they do have over Tesco for the time being.

I also looked at the beer section of the Tops Online site yesterday -- great if you love Chang, and other Thai beers. Horrible if you want anything else. As I recall, they only had two brands of non-Thai beers listed, I think one was Paulaner, and the other was Coopers, and all of the Coopers items were listed as being out of stock.

Edited April 11, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[isawasnake]

^For me, and that hasn't happened to me yet with tops, a small price to pay for heavy stuff delivered to my door to avoid BKK congestion and ill-adapted Bankokonian walking "technique"

[thenervoussurgeon]

Pity their stores ,especially here in Pattaya are half empty of stock ,they are going from bad to awfull.

[DeepInTheForest]

Is this a late April Fool story?

The online shopping website is hidden so well that it takes real determination to even find it, then the english language only partially works, the images are tiny and dont zoom or expand, the whole website has a real amateur feel to it.

I make a living from building catalog websites, if I was the person who built this i'd give up and start looking for another job.

I have yet to see any Thai website that both works, has no errors, and is up to date.

How is the Tesco website the fault of Thailand? I thought it was a British firm. Just curious.

[Thai at Heart]

Directly copying a press release and using it as a 'news item' generally is 'advertising'.

Who cares, TESCO LOTUS owns the Market soon!

Big C, Makro in Big Cities.

But everywhere else only LOTUS, BIG and SMALL!

7/11 has not the diversity of products, special fresh ones and is anyway more expensive!

I fear a monopoly!

A small Amphoe City in Udon Thani, which until recently had not even a 7/11 has now a small Lotus 24 hours open, to keep the 7/11 out for good!

Just about every business in Thailand is a virtual monopoly. Thailand loves the illusion of competition. When the competition gets too strong, note the catcalls of "foreigners" hurting Thai business.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Had another home delivery today...about 18 items.

Everything I ordered arrived as ordered, and the whole process inside the house took about 5 minutes.

Asked the driver how the delivery business was going, and he said OK. Asked if more Thais or farangs were his customers, and he said a lot more farangs than Thais, and that the delivery service was particularly busy around the lower Sukhumvit area.

So far, the Tesco website in terms of ordering has been pretty smooth (apart from lacking up-front English product descriptions and not being able to adjust number of products seen per page).

I really like the website saving as "favorites" all the things you've ordered before, making it very easy to re-order things on subsequent orders. Too bad they don't allow you to add your own choices to the favorites list or delete out things you don't want on your list.

And this time, I used the "edit order" function for the first time, adding a couple items I forget when I placed the original order. You have up to (I believe 11 pm) the night before your delivery day to add/delete or make any changes to your order via the website. Glad they have that feature.

[bkk_mike]

Nice, but as usual the ENG doesn't work properly. Luckily there are pictures Will be using that when they offer services in Bangplee.

The ironic thing is - half the time when you click on the picture, so that you can get it large enough to read it, and it shows the single item on the page, underneath the Thai, there is the English version.

Why they don't display the English (rather than the Thai - when you've specified English at the top), on the main page - I don't know.

But then, I get the feeling they've ported the site from some other country - probably the UK - after all, when you choose a subdistrict in Thailand (in some cases, just the district), it should know the postcode, but it still requires you to enter it.

[bkk_mike]

I can see it being EXTREMELY useful for ordering the bulk dog food delivery when the mother-in-law is pet-sitting as she can't drive...

Especially as I can book it and pay for it from abroad.

Admittedly the website wouldn't accept the UK credit cards I've tried so far (might be the UK side rejecting them), but it worked with my Hong Kong one. I think they're probably validating the address with the card company or something and I've got several addresses linked to me at the bank in Hong Kong, but UK cards seem to only allow for you having one address.

[utalkin2me]

I used tops again recently. One feature I found nice is after you login, it stores what you have in your basket (this actually surprised me, lol).

I wait until I get 1500 worth of stuff so the delivery is free, so it is a nice feature to be able to add stuff intermittently.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Tesco's operation does a couple of similar things, including some that I believe Tops doesn't:

1. Everything you order from Tesco online goes onto an ongoing Favorites list associated with your account, which makes it easy to select from those items to re-order on future orders. (Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any way to edit that list. Nor can you add items to it that you'd like to order in the future, but haven't ordered yet.) I don't believe Tops Online has any kind of "Favorites" list or other way to easily re-order common items.

2. Once you've placed an online Tesco order, you can edit your online shopping cart (add or delete any items) anytime up until 11 pm the night before your order is to be delivered.

3. If you log onto your Tesco Online account and place items in your online shopping cart, but don't finalize the order and then log out, I believe those items will still be in your cart the next time you log back in. I think Tesco even will sent you a reminder email about the unfinished order. But I'm not sure how long items will stay in your cart without the order having been completed.

Edited May 7, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Got a nice surprise in the mail today: a letter from Tesco with two 100 baht purchase vouchers, good at their stores for anytime in the coming year.

The accompanying letter in English and Thai said their Online Purchasing system is having a promotion to offer the two 100 baht vouchers "for first time customers with a purchase of 1,000 Baht or greater ... for orders delivered from 30 March - 31 May 2013."

The odd part is, the small print on the reverse of the vouchers appears to say they're valid for use at any Tesco Lotus stores, but it doesn't say whether or not they can be used for purchases made through their Online/Home Delivery service. Excluded are cigarette and tobacco purchases as well as drug store and food court items.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Dunno what's going on with this... but when I went to place a Tesco online delivery order today... I see that they are waiving the normal 60 baht delivery charge starting this Sat., June 1, and continuing at least thru mid-June, based on what their website shows...

I don't know if this is some kind of temporary promotion, or they've decided to eliminate the 60 baht per delivery charge period.

At any rate, their grocery deliveries have become a very convenient and regular feature in our household now. And as a result, I'm spending more shopping money at Tesco than I did before, and less at the various other supermarkets. So at least in this family's case, I'd say Tesco's home delivery business strategy is working.

I won't buy meats or fresh fruits or veggies from them. But for all kinds of canned goods and household staples (soaps, bathroom stuff, UHT milk, juices, snacks, packaged foods), their prices are in line with normal pricing and they often have items on sale as well.

Edited May 30, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[RubbaJohnny]

Can we also have a milkman to deliver fresh milk every day. Thanks.

Could a Milkmaid be of help ?

[Morakot]

Tesco: 60 baht delivery fee, regardless of the order

I order more than 1000 baht and had the shopping delivered this week, but was not charged any delivery fee.

The quality of some of the produces was not good. We didn't thoroughly check everything upon receiving the goods in the evening. Some of the vegetables were not as fresh as one would except. A sealed and boxed packet of crispbread turned out to be invested with insects after opening.

Many regular items we normally buy in the store, which are usually available there, were replaced with similar items as they were apparently not in stock. The delivery team apologised for this and said that we will get a voucher for 200 baht that we can used the next time we order, assuming this will be credited to my account. When I checked online the bill was 10 baht less than the modified and recalculated paper paper bill and there was no "voucher".

Overall, not impressed!

Edited June 5, 2013 by Morakot

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

This afternoon, I thought I must have woken up in a different country besides Thailand...

Answered a call out of the blue on my mobile phone, and it was a very polite, very well-spoken English-speaking youngish Thai guy calling on behalf of Tesco Online and asking if I'd be willing to answer some questions about their online order-home delivery service, and I said sure.

So we had about a 15 minute conversation, and clearly, as time went on, the point of his call was to ask what customers thought of the service thus far and especially to ask if we had any suggestions for improvement.

I gave him three suggestions:

--improve the English language descriptions presence on their website, which he answered is a known priority for the company.

--add a "Wish List" function of things a customer wants to track, apart from the automatic Favorites list they already have for things previously ordered.

--add a function to their product summary web pages giving users some choices of how many items (like 18, 40, 60, all) to display per page.

At the beginning of the post, I said I thought I must have woken up in a different country, because rarely here have I seen much of a sincere interest on the part of Thai retailers in assessing their customers experience and/or in doing much to improve it. And it seemed from the call that the Thai guy on the other end was someone who knew something about their business, not just a high school kid being paid minimum wage to make customer calls from a call center.

The Thai guy also asked if I was aware that they're having a "free delivery" promotion from now thru the middle of the month (waiving the normal 60 baht delivery fee), and I said I was (having posted on it above in this thread).

He also mentioned another promotion I wasn't aware of -- and that's that Tesco via their main website is offering E-Coupons for 200b off online delivery orders of 1,000 baht or more. The website mentioning both the free delivery and 200b discount promos is located here.

Overall, I complimented the company on their new service, noting that at least thus far: the drivers have been very polite and usually on-time for their scheduled delivery window, the range of available products for delivery seems to pretty well match the grocery offerings of their stores, the website is pretty easy to use for ordering, the ability to pay via credit card at the time of delivery is nice, and the prices are good, usually identical to the in-store prices.

All in all, it was pretty refreshing to get that kind of a call. Hopefully, Tesco will do a good job with their home delivery service and focus on making an already good thing even better.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I order more than 1000 baht and had the shopping delivered this week, but was not charged any delivery fee.

The quality of some of the produces was not good. We didn't thoroughly check everything upon receiving the goods in the evening. Some of the vegetables were not as fresh as one would except. A sealed and boxed packet of crispbread turned out to be invested with insects after opening.

Many regular items we normally buy in the store, which are usually available there, were replaced with similar items as they were apparently not in stock. The delivery team apologised for this and said that we will get a voucher for 200 baht that we can used the next time we order, assuming this will be credited to my account. When I checked online the bill was 10 baht less than the modified and recalculated paper paper bill and there was no "voucher".

Overall, not impressed!

Sorry you had a bad experience... Let me add a couple comments on what you've said.

1. Given that the freshness/quality of the fruits and veggies that Tesco typically seems to stock in its store doesn't seem to be that great, I've always figured that the fruit and veggies they'd deliver certainly wouldn't be any better. So I've avoided ordering any fruits/veggies from them.

2. Re the 200 baht vouchers, they've been sending those (which are only good for IN STORE PURCHASES) out in the mail to customers after they've placed at least a 1000 baht order. So assuming your order exceeded that, you should be getting them in the mail within a few weeks. Also note my post above, and the separate promotion about their E-coupon for 200b off online/home delivery orders of 1,000 baht or more.

3. In my half dozen or so orders with Tesco Online thus far, I've had just a couple of items "substituted" when the exact item I ordered online wasn't available. For example, my orders typically have been 18 to 20 items per order. Out of those, there might be one item that hasn't been available where they offer a substitute. If you don't like or want it, they'll take it back and deduct the item from your bill.

FWIW, my delivery orders are coming from their Rama IV store. I suspect issues like product availability and even cleanliness may vary from location to location among those that are handling their home delivery business.

4. Haven't had any bug problems with any of my orders thus far... But... based on past observation, a lot of the Thai supermarkets do seem to be substandard when it comes to pest control.

Hope the Tesco survey guy gives you a call as well, so you can give him your perspective as well.

Edited June 5, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Morakot]

Thanks John.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Apparently, shoppers around BKK are noticing Tesco Online's current free delivery promotion and their 200 baht discount coupon for online orders of 1000 baht or more. FYI, from what I've been told, each individual discount coupon code is a one-use code per customer, though there apparently are several different code out there, apart from the one listed on the Tesco website (and posted below).

I went to place an online order this morning and found their entire delivery schedule in my area of BKK was booked up for the next several days. Never had that happen before, back in the normal times when each delivery had a 60 baht fee. The free delivery promo is supposed to last thru the middle of this month.

Edited June 8, 2013 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[klubex99]

Is this a late April Fool story?

The online shopping website is hidden so well that it takes real determination to even find it, then the english language only partially works, the images are tiny and dont zoom or expand, the whole website has a real amateur feel to it.

I make a living from building catalog websites, if I was the person who built this i'd give up and start looking for another job.

I have yet to see any Thai website that both works, has no errors, and is up to date.

I hear ya...

We are currently building one right now as an online shopping mall with a bit of a twist. We want to try and encourage online sellers to migrate towards online payment methods to streamline the sale process for all. We will also have centralised processor accounts so that we can also act as an escrow service for buyers for added confidence.

This is more my wife's project, I gave her the concept idea, and I will guide her through the marketing of it, and I will cover the initial marketing budget to get it to a self sufficient degree. She has built the website to an impressive standard. The concept ought to be very popular.