Covid-19 and online shopping

There are 80 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 13,615 times. The latest Post () was by serafina.

    • Official Post

    Last night I spent hours trying to shop on Coto Digital, the online store of Coto.

    Frustrated by the many attempts, I found out that also Dia has an online store, but it is linked to a 'Nuñez branch' (I am in Palermo) where some items are not available.


    Having a Día two blocks from here and another 3 blocks from our place, it seems we have better chances to get our grocery shopping done in person, because of a bigger selection, lower price, no delivery charges and faster turnaround.

    We tried also Carrefour, that implemented a 'virtual queue'. Mine was just 5 minutes long and I have to say that once the 5 minutes lapsed, the website was working swiftly.


    Coto keeps crashing, and requires to login every now and then as a result. Luckily, it memorizes my shopping cart so I don't have to start from scratch every time. Between 2AM and 5AM it works, though.


    On FB many people do their shopping through Rappi and Glovo. I have never tried those and I think they display the same items as on the various supermarket website, but you'd use a glovo/rappi guy to actually shop for your. I think the selection is even smaller.


    Today, also PedidosYa app was not working, however the website was okay.

  • I remember registering by COTO online 2 years back.....hours it took, and never ever came to the final stage.....even with valid credit/debit card, DNI, address etc.!

    After that I never bothered again!!!

    I'm a big COTO fan, but not that masochist!

  • Rice ......

    I like COTO for several reasons......First of all for the excellent quality if meat, (keeping in mind it's a supermarket and not a high-end butcher). Also the prices of meat have always been very competitive.


    Secondly I admire ANY person in Argentina that manage to create anything from scratch and grow it into an empire.....I cannot imagine any country worse in the world to do that!

    Mercadolibre , Galperin, is another great example.


    Thirdly I admire someone that don't just accept being bullied by crooked governments, Galperin and Alfred Coto great examples.


    The story of Alfred Coto sounds like an American fairytale.....

    I try myself also from a moral perspective to support these types of business more than those of cronies!


    Wikipedia Alfred Coto

    • Official Post

    The local council in La Matanza closed one of his stores there last week for some alleged hygiene infringement, when clearly they are waging some kind of vendetta against him. In fact, he went there personally and joined in a protest against the closure.


    I'll give my verdict about online shopping when my my baccy finally arrives, if ever.

  • Thanks, @JAN . You have given me a real education on Alfred Coto and his impressive career achievements. I had no idea about the founding and growth of the chain of stores.


    While I’d still like to give them some free consulting on efficiency and customer service, perhaps Argentines have come to expect neither, and don’t mind standing in endless checkout lines while multiple tills sit empty and unattended.
    Hey - you can’t argue with success!


    Hats off to Alfred!

    • Official Post

    Whilst I applaud Mr Coto's achievements, it's about time he tackled his staff attitude which is apathetic to say the least and often verges on 'I could give a fuck'. He should also look at the cleanliness of his stores and the meat selection is absolutely shit, being bottom of the pile most of the time.

    Shopping at Coto is an unbearable experience and the only reason I go is for the 40% booze discount and its proximity for emergencies.

  • Sadly, our own experience is identical to @Splinter’s, regarding staff attitude and dripping bags of chicken, among other bacteria-laden meat and produce bins.


    As many have observed on this forum, Coto stores vary enormously in quality, offerings, attitudes and even specials. Yours in Tigre must be a really good one, @JAN . Even the one near Splinter is orders of magnitude better than ours. We are about equidistant from two in Palermo, both intensely vying for the title of Worst Coto, although in different categories, so I suppose they could both be winners.

    • Official Post

    It looks like customer service is REALLY not their priority, just like Splinter and Rice have been telling since forever :/


    "Vieja de mierda, ahora vas a ver quién manda"

    Fabiana Donati fue a comprar a una sucursal de Coto en San Isidro, denunció a una encargada que no estaban respetando las medidas de aislamiento dentro del supermercado y terminó golpeada por la policía por pedido de la misma encargada, presa, acusada de resistencia a la autoridad y disturbios. La denucia está hecha en la Secretaría de Derechos Humanos de la Nación y se prepara la denuncia penal para cuando esto pueda realizarse.

  • serafina you know the news and link is from pagina12?

    Hahaha.......

    Just the way it's written I need to laugh.....

    I refuse to comment on the credibility .....

    But I would be really happy to see the security cams documenting the whole happening......like the two lesbians that got arrested for being lesbian in the subway..... hahaha


    As far as it goes for the customer service, efficiency, products, prices etc. etc., I don't think COTO is different than any other supermarket.....not better not worse..... just Argentinian!


    I don't know any supermarket here in Argentina that is not "Argentinian"......if there was one, I would go there.....

    • Official Post

    I see no reason to believe that this woman is lying and neither do I believe that Pagina 12 is, either. I'm well aware of Pagina 12's reputation as a K publication, but judging from my sometimes hostile experiences in Coto, this come as no surprise. The police? It does still happen, but we never hear about it.

  • serafina I would make a million bet on that this story didn't happen as it is written in the article......


    As I referred to earlier, a year or 2 ago, 2 lesbians was arrested for kissing in public in Constitution train station......

    More dictatorship u cannot be......

    But, as u could already have guessed: they didn't get arrested for kissing but got arrested for smoking in the subway, resistance against authority, and refused to follow the rules for that public place.

    Story was written same way as this, and it went through the media like a storm.


    My first question to this story:

    How many shoppers would be annoyed of to many people that get let into a supermarket????

    Is it plausible that one customer would start complaining about that?

    Why not just leave the shop and wait outside and call the authorities?

    Again, I would make a million bet the security cams will tell a different story!!!!

    • Official Post

    In my local Coto it's practically the same. There are no controls over the number of people that enter, the staff DO NOT practice social distancing with each other and the shoppers don't either.

    Of course it's possible that one customer would complain in the face of such apathy and in fact, she did call and the implication is that she created a target on he own back as a troublemaker.

    There's also the implication that the police are in cahouts with the staff.

    • Official Post

    In my local Coto it's practically the same. There are no controls over the number of people that enter, the staff DO NOT practice social distancing with each other and the shoppers don't either.

    This is the same complaint that I have read online about different chains and locations, so it is not hard to believe to what the Lady complains about. And the usual head-under-sand of Argentines when in front of their wrongdoings is also sadly something not hard to believe.


    Isn't it odd that on local newspapers there aren't any more stories of people not in compliance with the quarantine? In Italy they are still fining thousands of people every day for breaking the quarantine! I can't believe that in Argentina they are all religiously observing it. More likely, the people didn't understand it properly and aren't doing it properly and who is supervising the quarantine isn't either.

  • I hope she have found a supermarket that fits her sense of shopping better!

    Im sure anyone would welcome her with open arms!!!!

    Btw, by digging down a little in internet, I found out that she is unemployed, living from the planes she got from adoption 3 teenage kids.....normally these type of people just get pregnant to cash in, but in that age it's difficult! Further reading from earlier articles paint a quite good picture of the person!!!!!!


    In my coto in San Fernando they do take the quarantine very seriously...even that it's a huge coto..... they only let in a certain amount of people and after that subsequently only new are let in when others are leaving.


    On the other hand, when I put this I relation to what happened friday, I find it quite unimportant!!!!