Home deliveries - strange substitutions...

[anonymous-user]

We use Tesco for our weekly 'staples' shop, and it's delivered. Either someone who knows me (son's friends have part-time jobs there) is having a bit of a joke, or someone who does the picking is a cracker short of a variety box.

• Last week, they substituted our order of Hendricks Gin for a bottle of dark rum. Not, Bombay Sapphire, not even Gordon's, nope, dark rum.

• This week they substituted a Meat Feast Pizza for a Vegetable Feast Pizza. Not a Pepperoni, nor Ham, nor Chicken, nope, something completely devoid of meat. Which my carnivore son had hoped to consume in feast-like quantities.

We've had many instances similar that I don't immediately recall.

Just me?

[Mr E]

They ran out of cat food.

The sent dog food.

The cats didn't care.

[calibrax]

I've had some odd ones in the past... coconut milk replaced by soya milk, lettuce replaced by celery, etc.

But nowadays I use Ocado, and it's pretty rare for them not to have items in stock - much more reliable than the normal supermarkets.

[miniman]

Lemon squash --> Lemon Domestos

[sherman]

Worst I have ever had was a 1.5 litre bottle instead of a 750ml bottle of cream sherry at christmas for the inlaws.

Also asked for paprika pringles and got extra spicy chilli ones instead.

[Pet Troll]

Having worked as a delivery driver (not a picker/packer) I can assure you that no thought goes into substitutions, it's a case of what is closest on the shelf to the out of stock item.

When arriving at a delivery I would always let people know the substitutions first and ask if there were any they didn't want, if they said yes I would ask if they would like it if it was free and then just refund the item for them.

There were some utterly ludicrous ones, mainly based around special dietary goods like gluten and nut free items being substituted for unsuitable items.

I remember one lady ordered some quorn chicken pieces and it was out of stock so it was substituted for a whole chicken , needless to say she didn't want it, but as it was free her dogs were set for a nice dinner!

[Rawwr]

miniman said:

Lemon squash --> Lemon Domestos

Amazing.

[Freakuk]

miniman said:

Lemon squash --> Lemon Domestos

Similar... Ordered lemons and got offered Lemon zest Mr Muscle or something similar

[anonymous-user]

Freakuk said:

Similar... Ordered lemons and got offered Lemon zest Mr Muscle or something similar

I'd be interested to understand if there is any IT/automation involvement in determining alternatives - does a stock control system recognise there's no lemons, so suggests something with 'lemon' in the name as an alternative, then slots it into a picker's list, and the picker doesn't even see/look at the original request? That would be half understandable, although you would have to question the quality of the algorithms in the IT software....

Surely even the stupidest of the stupid human pickers wouldn't make a substitution along those lines out of choice?

[Engineer1]

Want to bet bored students setting themselves challenges most inappropriate but vaguely linked substitution that didn't get rejected.

[Rawwr]

had ham said:

Surely even the stupidest of the stupid human pickers wouldn't make a substitution along those lines out of choice?

We're talking about Tesco staff, remember. The kind of people who think the plural of 'goose' is 'sheep'.

[anonymous-user]

Rawwr said:

We're talking about Tesco staff, remember. The kind of people who think the plural of 'goose' is 'sheep'.

[WCZ]

miniman said:

Lemon squash --> Lemon Domestos

[Dogwatch]

Not had a lot of experience of home delivery but Asda substitutions were sensible and they charged the (lower) ordered price. Must be a limit to that somewhere.

Delivery bloke went through the (short) list of subs first thing.

[mph1977]

had ham said:

<snip>

Surely even the stupidest of the stupid human pickers wouldn't make a substitution along those lines out of choice?

never underestimate the stupidity of minimum wage agency staff ...

[muppetdave]

Mrs ordered deodorant and got sent femfresh!

[HTP99]

We are using Asda at the mo and they are definately the worst for poor substitutes, here are a few that I can remember off hand:

• Fresh basil instead of coriander.
• Frozen scampi instead of fresh prawns; they aren't even in the same area of the supermarket so the scampi couldn't have been chosen as it was close to the prawns!
• Dried mixed herbs instead of dried oregano.
• A single piece of fresh smoked cod instead of a 4 pack of breaded cod.

There are others but I can't think right now.

One that threw me the other week was we ordered a couple of fresh pizzas; chicken and something else, they sent chicken but didn't substitute the something else pizza, surely there was alternative flavour pizza they could have chosen as the second one rather than just not bothering.

[Some Gump]

I wouod so love the be the substitute guy for a week. I'd spend the whole time teying to find the most bizarre substitutions, with the ultimate goal of the holy grail - robinsons jelly for ky jelly...

[anonymous-user]

Some Gump said:

I wouod so love the be the substitute guy for a week. I'd spend the whole time teying to find the most bizarre substitutions, with the ultimate goal of the holy grail - robinsons jelly for ky jelly...

Indeed, there's a Tesco picker out there somewhere reading this thread and pissing himself laughing!

[Chisinau]

The delivery service I used in Germany used to be pretty sensible, but once I got a fantastic one. I ordered a small wedge of brie, which they didn't have, so instead substituted an entire brie wheel for the same price!