I Pick Online Food Shop Orders AMA

[thismeansnothing]

On a few days off after a run of night shifts and am a bit bored. Plus after the thread about supermarket work I thought I'd set this up. I started this roll 6 month ago and find it interesting mainly because I am a nosey sod! But if you've wondered about supermarket work and the world of substitutions AMA

@bessiesurtees I have to say (touch wood) that's not happened to me. But unfortunately we have to send what's ordered. If we offsale stuff because we think it's an error and it's in stock again thatd be a telling off as it's not our decision to question/make.

@expensivelydecorated we have a device that's essentially like a smart phone that we carry so we scan each item as we go round. It lets us check stock levels and it suggests any substitutions.

@spacepug was the pack size different so they sent you 2 to make up the shortfall? If not you got lucky 😂 (I don't work at Tesco)

It relieves me it’s probably not just 1 person picking my shopping! The delivery driver definitely judges me though.

Any comical pairings? Bunch of bananas bottle of lube and some condoms?

@thismeansnothing

Why do the dotcom 'pickers' have no consideration for people shopping in the store?

I have lost count of the amount of times I have been knocked flying by dot.com people collecting stuff for online orders. Tesco are the worst, but Sainsburys and Morrisons are almost as bad.

How would (for example) a large bottle of sherry end up in someone's order, when they definitely didn't order it? It wasn't a substitution, it was extra!

@mustbe3ormorecharachters
Lube, condoms and male tenna pants

But the way a shops split up you don't see a customer's entire order. It's split up by ambient, chilled, produce and frozen and more than likely each ones picked by someone different. Then add in you pick up to 1000 items a shift you don't really pay attention to what item is for who. Unless it's part of the same pick and goes in the same crate.

Someone on a thread insinuated that food orders were not being done hygienically and that hygiene practices generally in some supermarkets were poor. Do you think this is true or fair?

@lisalee333 all picking where I work is done at night so no customers to contend with.

@hunkypunk hmmmmm 🤔🤔 Because if you've picked for example the sherry and scanned it to say you've took it off the shelf you then have to put it in the corresponding crate then scan the crate. If you scan the wrong crate you get an error message so you know you've gone wrong. Only thing I can suggest is they scanned the crate it was supposed to go in, before putting it in iyswim, then put it in with your shopping by mistake. So you got a little bonus and someone else was missing an item.

@beamur i can only speak for myself and what I've seen my colleagues do. I've come from healthcare so I'm on the ball with hand hygiene anyway. All our trolleys have alcohol gel and I see enough people use it. Some colleagues also chose to wear latex gloves while we pick.

During lockdown 1.0 we sent everything in carriers, now we don't unless a customer has paid for them. But if a customer has chosen not to have bags we still bag bleach separately and we also bag raw meat/fish. I won't lie, some of the crates do get a bit grotty. But if they are dirty they are put to one side to be cleaned. Again it's a case of thinking would I be pleased with my shopping arriving in this?

Last week I amended my order just before the cut-off online.
I took off about 7 items.
These items arrived and we're not include in my bill/receipt.
It's also happened to my friend.

How?

Were

@speid sorry I really can't answer that. Anything around the complexities of the ordering system/cut offs and editing etc is before it all get to me. We literally get a list of items and go off and pick it. So really.not got a clue there

I can order online for delivery in two hours and it comes from a local store, they have an app where the person shopping can send me details of a substitution which I can accept so reject. Would that still be just the one person or would more than one person be shopping?

Thanks for answering.
I get deliveries via Amazon from Morrison's, which (despite selling my soul to Amazon) have been great actually. I think there's less variety perhaps than online shopping directly with the shop but it's pretty speedy and has been reliable.

Our weekly order just arrived minutes ago. I never get chance to tell a picker how much we appreciate what you do, but I can see the care taken by the quality of fresh fruit and veg and how carefully my trays are organised. Home delivery has made shielding life easy and much safer so big thankyou.

@sophansbridge we don't have this at our store so I don't know how the logistics of it works - whether one person is responsible for one order or if it's split between a couple of staff members to make sure it's out on time. Sorry can't answer that one.

@2bazookas awww thanks. It does sometimes feel like we are forgotten a bit as we are a faceless entity. The delivery staff get loads of feedback and great comments though 😃 but they are the representative of the store the customer sees

One time I ordered 1/2 kg each of a load of different veg—so like a few carrots, a few narrows, etc. But they also sent me sixteen separate brocolis, a literal sack full.

Prank or accident? Dying to know

Re substitutions: DS once had a packet of lettuce seeds in his delivery, instead of the lettuce that he'd ordered.
Might have been a fast-growing variety, but wouldn't have been ready for tea that day.

@onjnmoeiejducwoapy maybe they saw you ordered some broccoli so must like it so went with a safe option but even that much is taking the Mick 😂😂😂

@hollyhope Jesus someone was really taking the Mick there. It would have suggested all manner of varieties of lettuce and bagged salad before seeds. That's if it even suggested seeds. That person blatantly needed a bit of training

So, do different staff pick different sections then it's collated? e.g one person does all the chiller stuff for several orders, another does fresh etc Is there a reason for that other than staff not moving all over the place to complete an order?

I always thought it was like someone taking your shopping list and getting everything for you in a trolley

@unlikelytobe on my first day I was like "what?! So I'm not picking one person's order?!?!"

So everything for that next days delivery and click and collects is collated and split into ambient pick lists, chilled, frozen and produce (fruit/veg/bakery). Soooo. We rock up and we start working our way through the ambient lists while the night staff get the latest bread, chilled and fruit and veg out ready to pick later.

When we go round we have 8 crates in our cart. And that could cover 2,3,4 customera etc. And somehow by magic the system manages to distribute the orders into one pick list so your trip is fairly evenly distributed through all the aisles of the store. That way we aren't just picking a load of bog roll and cleaning products. Then once all the new stocks out we can move onto the other various lists. Again it will be spread across a couple of different customers so again it's evenly spread through the aisles and say for chilled you aren't just stood their picking a load of milk.

I've asked how it works all this out, but my head nearly exploded