Dear Members

The past few weeks have been hectic ones. As you know we launched the Internet component of our electronic grocery service several weeks ago after extensive development spanning 3 years. Of those of you who received advanced notified of our launch, over 70% have downloaded the software and created an account. A majority of those who created accounts also placed an order. These results have far and away exceeded our initial expectations by more than 200% and we hope that this is a sign of the huge demand for our service.

The TeleGrocer service is designed specifically for your convenience and we encourage you to send us an email or give us a call with any suggestions or let us know of any difficulties you might be having with the software or the service. We have receive lots of kudos and encouraging remarks from those who have tried the service and I encourage those who haven't place their first order as yet to try us out.

A number of our members have provided suggestions on how to improve the service as well as letting us know of some software difficulties they were experiencing. We have compile below most of these suggestions along with what we have done to address them. We encourage you our members to continue to have an open dialogue with us, because it's through this dialogue that we are able to improve the service and make it more valuable to you.

Member Compliments
"As the owner of several computer companies, I know how difficult it is to get things going. I found that overall the service/product was excellent. There clearly will be some growing pains, however if my future experiences are at least as good as my first, I think you will do well. If you can possibly address some of my suggestions above, I believe the service will be even better...Note that I was quite pleased with all of the fruits/vegetables/meat that I ordered. They were as good if not better that I myself would have picked."

Members Suggestions and Feedback

Suggestion: Could you make the software such that I can select the description of the item before the brand name since I don't always know the brand?
Response: Yes, we are currently working on this and it will be available in the upcoming weeks.

Suggestion: Could you change the delivery times during the week from starting at 4:00 PM to start at 5:00 PM
Response: Yes, this has been implemented.

Suggestion: Having a debit card such has the one offered by the Bank of Nova Scotia would make it more convenient to pay. Will TeleGrocer be hooked-up soon?
Response: Yes, we will be providing wireless debit card payment in the future. However, right now we are concentrating on making the internal aspects of the service more dependable before adding additional features.

Suggestion: When will nutritional information be available?
Response: Our database already contains nutritional information for perishable items such as meats and produce. We are currently working on a component that will display this information in the software; it should be available shortly. We are also increasing the number of item-pictures in the database as well.

Suggestion: Would it be possible to add store brands such as President's Choice to your database?
Response: While it would be possible to add specific store brands we have chosen not to do so. This is because the products database is used by all fulfillment locations regardless of the store from which the item is sourced. We recommend that you use the SPECIAL REQUEST feature to order a product not in our database.

Suggestion: "When selecting a specific item, after selection, all list boxes are cleared except for the left box. I found that I would prefer to have at most the right list box cleared, as many times I had to reselect the left and middle boxes over and over, especially when under a general category such as Fruits."
Response: Great Idea. Done.

Suggestion: "I found it quite slow on 56K connection, however the process should be quicker next time."
Response: You are correct, it will be much faster next time especially with the RE-USE feature.

Suggestion: "On items such as meat/fruits/vegetables, it does not appear to care what you select for measurement type. For instance, there does not appear to be a way to say I want 4 apples, or 8 lamb chops."
Response: This was a bug in the software that re-sets the record pointer to the beginning of the list. Its been fixed.

Suggestion: " I would prefer to do my business by Internet, but I've run into a problem. My computer is Linux based! I can't download the file, because it just won't work. Do you have the same thing in Linux, Unix format?"
Response: Now we do. We have compiled a Linux version of our software for those who are interested in testing it to see if it works. If you are interested simply send us an email for download instructions.

I would like to thank all those who have provided us with their feedback. We are delighted that you were able to take the time to let us know how we can make the service more relevant to you. Please keep the dialogue coming.

Sincerely
TeleGrocer