Shoppers over-order accidentally
Countdown is allowing online customers to order fruit and vegetables by quantity, rather than weight, after noticing a tendency to be ‘a bit overzealous’ with orders during Covid-19 lockdown.
Shopping mishaps recognised by the country’s two largest supermarket chains, Countdown and Foodstuffs, include orders for 3kg of ginger, 10kg of lemons, and one banana for a family of 10.
‘‘When this happens our team in store will usually give the customer a call to check if they definitely want those 10kgs of lemons,’’ a Countdown spokeswoman said.
The trial will give customers the option to switch between wanting 1 banana or 0.2kg of bananas, to see which option is easier to understand. ‘‘We’ll be continuing this trial for the next couple of months and then assess whether to roll the feature out across all of our online ordering,’’ she said.
Foodstuffs, which owns New World and Pak’nsave, has also noticed some less-experienced online shoppers accidentally over or underordering.
Foodstuffs head of corporate affairs Antoinette Laird said a chat amongst the team had raised a few chortles of laughter at unfortunate online mistakes.
These included a woman who thought she had ordered a kilo of bananas and got one single banana. ‘‘Almost definitely not enough to go round for her household of 10.’’
Laird said if you did make an unfortunate error ‘‘rest assured the team from your local store know what to look out for and will give you a call if they’re not sure you really want those 50 kilos of oranges’’.
‘‘And if there’s an error on yours, or our part, just let the store know direct, and we’ll be sure to do what we can to put it right.’’
Laird said New World had a guide to online ordering which could be viewed on You Tube, which shows customers how to switch between weight and quantity.
North Island Pak’nsave stores offered a Click-and-collect online option, and had a function whereby customers could purchase fresh fruit and veges either by weight or number.