What a difference four months and rather stern criticism from The Grocer can make.

The experiences of our shoppers in the previous online shopping survey in January were blighted by inaccurate invoices, numerous out-of-stock items, excessive use of plastic bags and long delivery times. Our latest quarterly analysis, however, reveals evidence of improvements across the board.

Asda has even managed the rare feat of scooping our Star Order prize for a second consecutive time. It had the best availability and delivered all 33 items on our shopping list. Asda was also able to deliver the order the following day, improving on its three-day wait in January, as were Sainsbury's and Tesco.

All our shoppers managed to log on to each of the retailers' websites instantly and only Tesco's website was deemed hard to navigate. Our shopper had to repeat the payment process three times because recurring error messages kept popping up on screen.

Asda and Sainsbury's continued to offer the cheapest delivery charge at £5, while Tesco reduced its charge slightly from £5.99 to £5.95. Ocado, however, increased its fee from £5 to £6.

The retailers' only saving grace in the previous survey was their accurate delivery times and each retailer arrived within the specified time slots once again.

Their standards of availability also make for positive reading. Four months ago, the retailers failed to deliver eight of the requested items on average and made six substitutions.

This time around only one item was substituted, and all but the Tesco shopper received all the items they ordered. Ocado does not stock loose, unpackaged vegetables so the new potatoes, garlic and mushrooms weren't ordered. The standard white Hovis loaf and Wall's sausages were not stocked either so our shopper only ordered and received 28 items.

The 4-pack of Stella Artois was not listed on Sainsbury's website and the white seedless grapes were only available in 500g bags so our shopper didn't order them. He didn't order the new potatoes either because they could not be provided loose and bizarrely he received two pears that weren't required.

Tesco was the only retailer to provide a substitution. The 7-pack of Hula Hoops Original was out of stock so a 24-pack was sent to our shopper instead at no extra cost. The other 32 items on the list were delivered without any problems.

Tesco was also the only retailer that used more carrier bags this time - seven instead of last time's six. However, Tesco was the only retailer to use crates, which proves it is making some effort to cut its reliance on plastic bags.

In the previous two surveys, Sainsbury's was criticised for using 15 bags and 18 bags respectively, occasionally putting only one or two items in each bag. But the message is evidently getting through as nine bags were used for 30 items this time.

Ocado and Asda used three fewer bags than last time with totals of seven and nine respectively.

The most consistent element of the retailers' online delivery services in previous surveys has been the efficiency and helpfulness of delivery drivers and none of the providers disappointed this time.

Asda's driver was friendly and waited to gather the bags, while Ocado's driver told our shopper that he would retrieve them on his next visit because she wanted to unpack them herself.

Tesco's driver helped carry the delivery to the top floor of our shopper's flat but didn't collect the bags after and neither did the Sainsbury's driver. However, they did deliver the goods undamaged.

Deliveries are faster, more reliable and likely to include more of the items ordered in fewer bags. Let's hope shoppers are as satisfied come our next survey in the

summer.

Waitrose was not included in the survey because our shopper failed to realise her order had not gone through. For the benefit of The Grocer's data archive, another basket was ordered but could not be delivered in time for this issue.