My experiences with online supermarkets have been less than seamlessly brilliant. Don't get me wrong, I'm officially a fan for these excellent reasons, but in reality I have tried services from some of the biggest names over the last couple of years, and been disappointed by them all for one reason or another.

The strange thing, is that by accidentally being a bit fickle with my online shop, I've discovered a cunning trick to help me save money.





I wasn't trying to do anything clever. Asda kept delivering meat that was already off, and now my Sainsbury's delivery driver has a major attitude problem because of the fact I want to be able to check my shopping against the list and some basics about best-before dates before I let him drive off again (I promise I do this in less than three minutes).

However, in the process of switching around to find a combination of reasonable prices and basic functionality I have come across two benefits of playing hard to get.

First-off, when you go somewhere new, you will usually be offered some kind of deal. At the very least this will be free delivery, but you could get a sizeable chunk off your bill too. These offers tend to fall out of magazines and newspapers, but if you don't happen to stumble across them, there are plenty on voucher sites like myvouchercodes.co.uk or shoppingvouchers.co.uk.

Then, just as the thrill of your new shopping partner is diminishing, and the delivery driver throws another strop in the street because you're refusing to accept three chickens that all go off tomorrow, the old supermarkets start to email you. They start by telling you what great deals they have, then they send messages with sad sounding titles like 'we've missed you' and finally... after a month.. they'll start sending more deals for more free delivery and more money off.

By that stage I tend to be utterly at my wits end with my new supermarket, and ready to switch again.

The only question remains whether I should go with the devil I know (who is currently begging to have me back with free delivery) or the devil I don't, who offered me a voucher for £10 free shopping.

I could get used to this 'hard to get' business.