Plastic Bag Charge On Supermarket Deliveries

[sue11]

I wonder if anyone has come across this from their supermarket delivery?
Sainsburys is charging an average price of 40p which of course equates to a cost for 8 bags.
My thoughts were that this was a fair charge as there will be situations where you will have more bags and some where you will have less.
However today is the first time that I have paid the bag cost and I found that they had delivered using 6 carrier bags. But there were about another 7 large items such as packs of cat food, a 4 pint milk bottle, a bottle of floor cleaner etc were left unpacked in the delivery. As the items were quite large, it probably could have filled another 2 bags.
But I felt a bit hard done by with the way that they had not packed everything for me! This means that I had paid for 8 bags, but did not receive them when I should have done, because they had not bothered to pack all my items as I had requested.
The cost difference of this is a tiny amount and I know that effectively my extra payment of 10p has gone to charity, but if they do this to all their delivery customers across the UK, then they will make large savings by the fact that they will use less bags over the year but can still charge customers for them. Put this together with the the accounting charges expenses that they can remove when calculating what to pay the tax man over a year means it all could run into thousands of pounds savings for them.
What do others think about this?

[fiction-factory]

Won't it be swings and roundabouts- next time they might charge you 40p but you get 9 or 10?

[Davemano]

Apparently Poundland have created a bit of controversy. Nothing that they sell is over or under £1 but they are charging 5p for carrier bags. Trading Standards are now involved.

[fiction-factory]

Do you have a link for that davemano please?
Apart from this satirical newpaper
http://newsthump.com/2015/10/07/poundland-forced-to-charge-1-for-carrier-bags/

[Davemano]

ff - I got it from my son who said he had seen it on a newspaper website.

[Mamyalynne]

My last 2 Tesco online shops , I ticked bagless - first one , 5 bags, last one zero bags even my frozen food was unwrapped.

Not a problem for me.

[ummmm]

I always tick the bagless. The delivery driver told me we won't be charged if they bag anything.

We will see.

[AlwaysConfused]

The 40p charge is based on an average shop that uses 8 bags. As mentioned, should you put in a larger order next time, you will still pay 40p, but may have more goods bagged up. I have never shopped online with Sainsburys, but other supermarkets have told their personal shoppers not to bag larger items such as cereal and multi-pack crisps. I'd imagine in your case your non-edible goods (pet food, floor cleaner) were picked into separate trays so not to contaminate your edible goods.

One retailer was only going to charge 30p, but an evaluation of the packing process showed that 8 bags was average, and therefore the 40p levy would apply.

The bag charge is very much in its infancy in this country. I'm sure a lot will change by this time next year

[sue11]

Thanks all for the answers and for the humour. Myself I like reading the Daily Mash if I want satire!
Yes I appreciate that it will be swings and roundabouts, sometimes (I hope) I will get more bags and sometimes less, this would not matter if I got less and paid the higher average charge, but found that everything was bagged up regardless of the type of goods.
My worry that it may be a procedure they have bought in to try to reduce the amount of bags given now that we are paying for them. As said it is a tiny amount difference for a single shop, but if this happens a lot across the thousands of deliveries across the UK, then I think the total sum would be quite good for the supermarkets!
Thanks for all the replies
Sue

[silliemillie]

Sorry to sound 'thick' here but if the shopping is not in bags how do you get it from your doorstep into the kitchen? Ok if it's only a few items but when it's something like 8 bags worth?

[woofgang]

have your own bags/crates/boxes ready and pack it at the front door? I have no idea, am happy to pay the bag charge when I get stuff delivered.

[Mamyalynne]

I get them to bring my shopping to the kitchen table, they don't mind.

[woofgang]

yes my delivery folk always say "are you sure" when I say I only want it dumped just inside the front door.

[Caribeing]

Why can't they deliver your goods hamper style in a large cardboard box or crate they must have loads of boxes from store deliveries, they should ban plastic bags altogether charging for them doesn't solve a problem of pollution!

[silliemillie]

carisbeing - they won't give up the boxes from deliveries these days as they sell them to recycling companies, making them more money.

[Mamyalynne]

Comes in a crate, he (usually a he) unpacks onto table, takes crate away.

I have enough cardboard boxes, don't want any more.

[tonyav]

No bag !, better cough up 5p or be banned.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/5p-bag-charge-asda-shopper-banned-from-store-after-attempting-to-carry-shopping-to-car-in-basket/ar-AAfg2lO?li=AA9SkIr

[woofgang]

Caribeing, saving the cardboard boxes things are delivered in has fire insurance implications for the store based delivery services, and also I don't think there would be enough. The boxes that things are delivered in to stores are more and more flimsy cardboard trays with the tins or packets shrink wrapped on. Bread and so on comes in plastic crates.