Shopper says she’ll have to travel 30km to supermarket after Countdown stopped delivering | Stuff.co.nz

A Northland family say they are being forced to travel an hour’s round trip to get their groceries because Countdown has changed its mind about delivering to them.

Jessica Gerrie said she was phoned by Countdown last week and told she would no longer be able to have her groceries delivered to her home in Tangiteroria, between Whangarei and Dargaville. She had been receiving deliveries since she moved in to her home in November.

But instead of having her groceries turn up on her doorstep, she will now be charged $31.25 to have them brought by courier. Perishable items cannot be delivered.

 “I have ended up homeschooling my kids so they are with me 24/7,” Gerrie said.

“Our son hates going to the supermarket.  He just hates it, so avoiding that weekly drama and having everything turn up on the doorstep with a cheery delivery driver who I could have a chat with was a really lovely luxury, made affordable with the purchase of a ‘delivery saver’.  It didn’t matter if one of us – usually me – hadn’t slept well the night before and wasn’t feeling great, our groceries turned up without drama or stress.  We are no further away from a Countdown supermarket than we were when we lived in urban Auckland, but their new policy means we are excluded from this service.”

A Countdown spokeswoman said it regularly reviewed its delivery areas and windows to make sure it was matching growing demand with capacity.

“Over the last year we’ve also been working to tidy up our customers’ address and delivery details, and this has meant that a small number of customers have been found to be outside of an online delivery zone.”

She said Tangiteroria had never been a full-service area and it could be that Gerrie’s address was entered incorrectly initially. 

“In these situations our team will often try and deliver the initial order but not further orders as it is outside our delivery zone.”

Gerrie said it was confusing that the supermarket was advertising it would deliver to a beach or bach in December and January, but some of the areas it advertised were listed on the website as non-full service areas, in the same way her house was.

“We purchased a three-month delivery saver and have been told we will be refunded the difference of what we haven’t used which is about half.  To us, the purchase of that delivery saver meant we had contracted them to deliver our groceries for a set period of time.  But they are no longer going to honour that contract and it has been terminated, effective immediately, without consultation with us, and without our consent.  

“I did point out that we are only 15 minutes away from the Dargaville Countdown despite being 18km away.  In Auckland, at certain times of the day, it could easily take 15 minutes to travel 5km.”

She said she would now be driving the hour round-trip to central Whangarei to pick up her groceries, instead.

“Due to now being excluded from having our groceries delivered we will be making the trip into Whangarei, at around two-and-a-half times the distance, to do our weekly shop at New World.  At least I can still do my order online from them and just go in to pick it up which avoids having to drag an uncooperative son around the supermarket – it must be a sensory issue for him because he hates all the cold bits.”