It can be tough bagging an elusive supermarket slot, be it for home deliveries or click and collect. Don't despair! There is an app that can totally transform your life. A website and app called Visual Ping scours the internet so you don't have to – put simply, the site monitors web pages selected by you and notifies you if it detects any changes: ie delivery slots becoming available. Genius.
How do I sign up to Visual Ping?
To get going, you need to sign up at visualping.com and enter the web address of the website you want it to monitor for you – they suggest Tesco. Then you select how often you want notifications sent to you; it varies from every five minutes to every week. The app will tell you if it has detected any changed on the site, be it small or large, then you can log on to said website to check.
Do I have to pay to use Visual Ping?
The website's starter package is free and includes two checks a day, so 65 checks a month. For more frequent checks, the website offers different pricing plans, starting at £3.23 for 10 pages a day.
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How does Visual Ping work?
The website says its process works by first taking a screenshot of the specified website. They then return at the time you selected, eg one hour and take another screenshot, then compare the two. If there's a difference, they notify you.
How many people are using Visual Ping for supermarket deliveries?
When we wrote this story back in March 2020, there were 2000 people signed up to the website to monitor supermarket delivery slots. And now, in January 2021, more than 1.5 million use the site. Wow.
Are there any limitations to using Visual Ping?
Unfortunately, the site is now only able to track Tesco deliveries. A statement issued on their website read: "Too many shoppers were using our system and triggered an automatic security threshold at Morrisons, Ocado, Waitrose and Asda. We are discussing with the retail chains and asking to whitelist our servers as we allow shoppers to save valuable time."
Keep checking back to see if anything has changed.
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