Asda have fucked up my Christmas food shopping: a rant.

[EwItsAHooman]

Need to rent here so that I don't end up losing my temper with some undeserving person on the customer services helpline.

Booked my online food shop several weeks ago to be delivered tonight. Have gotten an email from Asda now detailing everything that has either been substituted or is not available. Out of 100 items, 28 have been substituted and 5 are unavailable.

Fucks sake.

And the substitutions.... What in the actual fuck!?

40 cocktail sausages, for making pigs in blankets, have been substituted for 12 cocktail sausages. How far do they think 12 will go!?

Frozen party food. A box of mini pizzas has been substituted for one pizza. Selection of Indian snacks has been substituted for spring rolls. Duck rolls have been substituted for spring rolls too. We'll be drowning in spring bloody rolls.

Sausage rolls have been substituted for a pack of Richmond sausages.

A pack of mixed "festive" cheeses has been substituted for a single block of Wensleydale.

Pickled gherkins are now pickled cucumbers.

Extra special fancy flavoured stuffing is now normal Paxo.

Turkey gravy has become chicken gravy granules.

Pretzel stars are now tortilla rolls.

Mint vienetta has become lemon ice cream.

These are just the ones I can remember without going back over the email.

And the kicker, the Birds Eye dippers have been substituted for Asda chicken nuggets. The dippers are for DS because he only eats fucking dippers (ASD) and only Birds Eye fucking dippers.

Unavailable items include cranberry sauce, goose fat, chicken skewers, and a few other things.

So 33% of the shopping is wrong and/or missing.

Customer services have been next to useless and I'm waiting on a manager calling me back (which is why I need to unload so that I can get all my fucks out now and then discuss it calmly when he/she does). Said to give any unwanted items to the driver and they'll refund them, which is all well and good but why have they fucked it up so badly in the first place? When it was ordered weeks ago, why wasn't the stock available? I expected one or two missing or substituted bits but thirty-fucking-three!?

So now I need to get the DC sorted, including one with ASD who hates the supermarket and is going to screech at top volume all the way there and all the way around (enjoy that, fellow shoppers!), will probably the violent somewhere between the checkout and the carpark so I can have a few festive thumps, and might even run off depending on exactly how busy it is. Which is why I shopped online in the first place.

And I can't even pour myself a gin and calm down because I've got to go to the fucking supermarket.

Sorry.

What I don’t get with the Christmas deliveries is why to they pick the bulk of it directly from the delivery to store. I bet they will have a fresh delivery of pigs in blankets etc every day. Why don’t they have someone saying ‘put 26 of those aside for today’s deliveries and the rest can go out’.
You'd think wouldn't you?! It's not difficult and it's not rocket science (though I doubt a single person working there has ever come up with it). It would even save them time & money because not only would they not lose money & potential future custom on crap substitutions but they wouldn't need to pay staff to spend so long trailing round the shop.

They left off her turkey amongstva lot of other rather key items.
In the past I've actually ordered a turkey at Thanksgiving from Ocado (bless those American customs) and stuck it in the freezer just so that I avoid any panics like that.

That will learn you!
Stop being lazy and do your own shopping in future

Ok, we’ve noticed you, now away you go back to watch Barnie or something.

I'm so glad I ordered my delivery from Tesco to arrive Thursday. It was perfect.

Hope you got your stuff OP.

@PollyFlinderz - oh I'm SURE fuzzyduck1 was just joking and not being so dense as to not realise why some people use home delivery.

@RangeRider as I explained above that won't work because the days orders are picked from 4am but the delivery may not be in until 9am.

Shops don't get a delivery every day of things such as pigs in blankets either.

There was a Christmas ordering deadline of 16th Dec for ASDA for Xmas stuff like the turkey or pigs in blankets. I ordered by then and none of my Xmas items were substituted. Don't know if that was just lucky or whether they did actually reserve those items for me. Otherwise had about 6 subs which weren't a disaster.

Tom and Barbara Good next door will invite you in to join them for Xmas...

Nearly 50

But i love this episode...poor margo

She did have a lovely Christmas in the end

Charged for them though, cheers for that.

I've totalled the bill and I've also been charged for my missing items. Joy.

I've managed to get cranberry sauce, mint chocolate chip ice cream and a bottle of chocolate sauce ("it is a vienetta, kids..."), a gigantic jar of gherkins, and some mini pizzas.

I'll still need to go out tomorrow for some of the other missing and substituted items but fingers crossed it won't be too busy as most people will have gone yesterday or today.

That will learn you! Stop being lazy and do your own shopping in future

1/10 for effort, must try harder

There was a Christmas ordering deadline of 16th Dec for ASDA for Xmas stuff like the turkey or pigs in blankets. I ordered by then and none of my Xmas items were substituted. Don't know if that was just lucky or whether they did actually reserve those items for me

Mine was done before then so you've been lucky, or I've been unlucky.

And.... I got a big bag of chicken dippers

Cost me £5.99 from a corner shop but still, small mercies and all that.

^
Asda allow you to amend your order up until about 11.30pm the night before delivery so some people will initially order 10 bottles of champagne just to make it up to the £40 you need to book your slot and then do their proper shopping order the day before delivery. Asda have no way of knowing exactly what has been ordered^

This is why the supermarkets can’t ensure that they have everything in that customers have ordered.

And.... I got a big bag of chicken dippers star

That’s great!

Not getting the items you have ordered is a real pain at any time but in your circumstances OP and this closed to Christmas it is doubly frustrating.

I had this with Tesco a few years back. 17 missing items for which there was no suitable substitute available including potatoes!!

I immediately went off to the store (the one which the delivery had come from)and found all of the missing items on the shelves. My last stop was the customer services desk where I asked to see the manager in charge of deliveries. His response? "Well madam we are very busy you know." I did just have to point out that his customers are busy too which is why we book deliveries. I have never trusted Tesco with an important delivery since.

Mind you, Waitrose managed to "lose" my Turkey the other year. It was ordered from their entertaining range so no issues with availability or at least there shouldn't have been.

This year I am picking up my order from M&S at 7 tomorrow morning, so if anything is missing I can dash around and make my own substitutions.

Hope you manage to find your chicken dippers OP

I think I was in your local store this morning! Overheard a conversation between 3 online 'pickers' it was obviously a regular staff member and 2 temps/newbies - one was asking about what to do about the lack of stuffing, the other joined in with what a nightmare it was trying to get things off the shelves, the regular staff member just said 'sub [stitute] with ANYTHING you can find nearby

Delighted to hear you got the ‘right’ chicken dippers too.
Fellow ASD Mum who has had years of needing to get the ‘right’ products

I got lucky with the Asda order this year that was delivered yesterday. The only thing that was unavailable was streaky bacon.

I've hidden the ice cream from the kids though. That's my treat.

For next year, I recommend Morrison's- they use the same warehouse system as Ocado, so the stock levels are predictable based on what is in the warehouse- whereas the other supermarkets pick off a supermarket shelf where customers may have bought all the stock. I very rarely get a substitution.

My Christmas basket closed 2 days before delivery, rather than the usual 24 hours, I presume to regulate stock. Everything was delivered in my Christmas shop.

Ocado are obviously great too but a bit more expensive.

Apart from the particular foods for your DC with autism please don't stress too much about the missing items- I'm sure your Christmas will be lovely and I'd choose a fifth spring roll over an unnecessary supermarket trip any day.

you’ve got Asda employees going around the store with your list. If the items aren’t on the shell, little they can do to magic them up. This always happens and plenty enough people bitch about it on social media yearly, so not sure why you’re surprised. Next year, order long lasting/frozen food well ahead instead of 2 days before Xmas. Or suffer the wrath of random substitution

But sainsburys pick in store, too, and all I had missing from my delivery, late last night, was some shower gel, and that particular one has been quite hard to get hold of, lately, anyhow.

I hope you got your chicken dippers, OP.

Glad you got your dippers

@PollyFlinderz i know but why, with children across the whole spectrum (I have two) is it the Birdseye chicken dipper? My oldest son is 14 and it’s been a recurring theme amongst all the people we have met with Asd. It’s universal.

Oh I hugely sympathise, we had a bad experience a couple years ago. They should have subbed you more cocktail sausages for the same price. It's so frustrating when you think it's all sorted. Hope the shopping trip isn't too bad.

I reckon they're lacing them with something. Crack, possibly.

Oh bloody hell.... this is why I dont do Xmas online deliveries and brave Tesco. You still have time to sort it.

Glad you managed to get sorted OP.

Don’t be too hard on the subs, it’s a little handheld computer that automatically gives you them. The pickers don’t think of them themselves.