The beginning of a revolution in food shopping

After all, if consumers could order food at a click of a computer mouse then sit back and wait for the goodies to be delivered to their door, who would want to wheel an unwieldy trolley around the supermarket, queue up to pay and then lug the whole lot home?

But despite huge growth in online supermarket shopping in the past four years, customers are still having trouble getting the service they deserve, according to a new survey.

Missing items, late delivery and technical difficulties, as well as the length of time taken to log on to particular sites, were just some of the problems highlighted by the study carried out by The Grocer magazine.

The report concluded that there has been no improvement in the two years since it last attempted to buy the same 33 products from websites run by the major supermarkets.

Yet the supermarket internet shopping explosion continues to grow and has turned into a multi-billion pound industry. Tesco.com alone handles 100,000 orders a week and has branched out to sell wine, flowers, DVDs and electrical goods like televisions, as well as financial services.

Here, two writers who have tried on-line supermarket shopping with different results, argue their cases for and against buying groceries online.

THE RELIEF IS ENORMOUS says Nell Raven

The last thing I want to do after work is traipse around a supermarket feeling tired and totally uninspired. I get a feeling of rising panic dodging small children and shoppers who don't look where they are going. Now I hardly ever have to face my personal hell, and the relief is enormous.

These days, I shop at Tesco.com and I can plan out what I want to eat during the week, with all my favourite recipe books laid out in front of me. So instead of spending time staring blankly at shelves in the company of other stressed-out professionals, I can now make sure my diet is always interesting. My evening meals have never been more satisfying.

Although there is a £5 delivery charge with internet shopping, I find overall it saves me money.

Firstly, the fee is cancelled out by the cost, both in time and petrol, of travelling to the supermarket.

Secondly, because I can't see the food, I am no longer tempted into wasting money on pointless and unhealthy snacks.

And thirdly, I buy less food. I never used to have the wherewithal to do a weekly shop, and as a consequence ended up getting one meal's worth of expensive but convenient ingredients every night. Now I do one weekly shop and only buy what I need.

I also find internet shopping saves me time. I will admit that the first time I logged on, it took a while to find my way around the website. But after that, it got easier and easier.

Each week you build up a favourites list, and that speeds up the whole process. Of course, it does not compel everyone to get the same things every week - that is entirely down to individual choice. Personally, I tick off the basics like bread and milk, and vary the rest of my shopping each time.

There is also the added bonus of reminding you to get stuff like washing powder and toothpaste which I frequently forgot in the past!

It takes me an hour to get a week's shopping, which by my assessment is excellent, especially when you consider the time it takes to travel to the supermarket.

One criticism of internet shopping is that it denies one the opportunity to assess the quality of ingredients. Personally, I have rarely had a problem with fruit or vegetables, and where they were not up to scratch, I sent them back. The money was promptly reimbursed to my bank account.

In any case, I have found the quality of service has improved since I started using the service in January, and the personal shoppers have got better at their job.

NOT FOR ME says Hannah Stephenson

I thought the whole point of online shopping was that it was quick, easy and, above all, time-saving. Yet the first - and only - time I shopped with Tesco from home, I found the whole process extremely laborious. It took me two hours to order around £35 of goods and I had to pay a £5 delivery charge.

That cancels out any time I should have saved on travelling as I know my regular supermarket well and can zip around the aisles quickly, looking for the label of my regular buys rather than having to scroll through a dozen different brand names before I find the right one on screen.

I have been told that once you select your regular buys in your 'favourites' basket, you can do the transaction much more quickly, ordering the same items time after time.

But I never go to the supermarket just to buy the same old basics. I don't want the same menu every week. I don't want sausages on Monday, chops on Tuesday, casserole on Wednesday, etc. I want the supermarket to inspire me. And often it does.

The thing is, supermarket shopping online is deadly dull. I sit in front of a computer screen a lot of the time for work and I don't want to do it in my free time.

There's no feelgood factor in clicking the mouse 50 times in what often seems like a multiple choice examination when you could be entering a much more visually pleasing area of consumer goods.

Special offers, new products, colourful displays and innovative ideas for home and kitchen are all much more enjoyable when you see them in the raw, rather than on a screen.

Also, I am interested in food. I want to pick out my potatoes, my fruit and my veg, look at the joints of meat available before buying, check the sell-by dates and assess the quality of products myself.

I might decide to try out a particular vegetable or fruit that looks interesting, or something else a little more exotic that I wouldn't think of putting on my weekly list.

And then there are the special offers. You feel pleasure when you come away with a bargain, but that feeling is cancelled out with online shopping if you have to pay a £5 delivery charge.

Some people argue that they don't want to have to drag their children around a supermarket. But, as a mother with two children under five, I go to a large supermarket with a supervised creche (many of the larger branches of the major supermarkets have them and most take children from age two-and-a-half upwards).

My children amuse themselves in the well-equipped soft play area, play with toys and generally have a good time, which leaves me free to amuse myself in the store in total peace, knowing that no-one will interrupt my hour of shopping. If there are any problems with the children, the store will tannoy me.

I don't have to worry that my order may not be complete, and if something is out of stock I can choose an alternative that I fancy, rather than the supermarket guessing what might be suitable.

At least I know when I get home that my shopping list is complete, has been delivered on time and that, if any mistakes have been made, they will be down to me.