What's the strangest substitute you have been given- online shopping

[Loneranger14]

My food order came today and face wipes was out of stock so they gave me a packet of nappies as a substitute, real helpful

You won’t believe this but I swear it’s true: 2 bottles of F25 suntan lotion instead of a bottle of F50

Oh and also ordered two number 2 candles for my daughter's second birthday (two cakes) and got an 8 and a 6. Rather than, you know, just normal non number aamdjdg

Ordered ten bags of ice cubes for a party. Got 8 bags of ice and 2 bags of frozen chips! Not great in a vodka and tonic. Another time under similar circumstances they sent bananas instead of limes. I did not put one in the G&Ts!

I ordered a gluten free cake mix and got a bag of King Edward potatoes.

Not actually a substitute but an Asda delivery driver tried to get me to take 4 free cd copies of 'Do they know it's Christmas 2014'. Apparently they just couldn't shift them

I ordered size 1 nappies and they sent size 5 😂😅😂😂😅

I have been online shopping for years and have never had any outlandish subs. Unless of course you include sending me diet coke instead of proper coke or yoghurts with bits in rather than smooth.

I worked as an online shopper for a while. At the time your handheld scanner didn't give you a suggestion, you had to decide what to sub with. The supermarket I worked for (starts and ends with s!) insisted you subbed even if there was nothing suitable to sub with. It was one of the things they could give you a disciplinary over also could get one if you took to long on your shop This is why a lot of the shoppers just grab anything as a sub.
One time I had a pack of straws on the shop I was doing. The store was having a refurb and where the straws were was shut off. My manager insisted I had to send something so set off to look for something. He came back with a pack of freezer bags! I refused to scan them through on my login so he had to do it. The poor person who got that shop must have thought I was an idiot.

Ordered Coconut oil
Received coconut conditioner

My dd works as an online picker. She has some odd options suggested by the computer, but she uses her initiative!

Eg nappies for nappies etc 😊

My subs are sometimes a bit off, but the only really bad one was many years ago... bottle of orange squash instead of a bunch of grapes.

And not a sub, but they once delivered my NDNs shopping to our house. DD(17) was the only one in, presumed we’d forgotten to tell her about the shopping, so accepted it, took it in and put it away! They realised a while later but said we could keep it! New shop hastily brought to NDNs.

Ordered spring rolls and got a gourd has me howling!

Dairy free things for my DS are frequently substituted for gluten free items. Well hey one food allergy is just the same as the next isn't it? When I am at home to accept the delivery it is ok as I just reject useless subs, but DH accepts any old rubbish, which is how we ended up with a fridge full of almond milk as a sub for soya milk once. DS is anaphylactic to all nuts including almonds and DH knows this so I have no idea what was going through his mind. Not getting what you need is very annoying and an inappropriate substitution is even more frustrating, but a substitution that could kill your child is scary. Good job I noticed before DS helped himself as the packaging is very similar and he wouldn't have been expecting there to be something lethal in the fridge and is as observant as most teenage boys.
I tick the "no subs" box for dairy free items now.
I have noticed ourTesco tend to substitute with another item from the same brand rather than the same item from a different brand. So I'd ordered Alpro soya milk and it seems their process identified Alpro as the key word not soya. I find it hard to believe that they had no soya milk of any kind in stock. I had the same thing happen with nappies years ago. I'd ordered size 4 Pampers and instead of getting size 4 in a different brand I got size 2 Pampers. Ridiculous.

Ordered pizza. Got coconut yoghurt.

I ordered a pregnancy test and was sent a bottle of lube

This was Asda

GhengisCalm; perhaps they thought you could make your own cheesecake?

I was having a party and I ordered 20 bottles of various fizzy drinks (coke, lemonade, tonic etc). Ended up with 20 bottles of Irn Bru.

Haha I used to work for the complaints department of a major supermarket when their online shopping was in it's infancy and the subs were hilarious.

Faves included a loaf of bread being subbed for yeast and flour. Make your own 😂 Inventive I thought. And a packet of jelly being subbed for KY Jelly 🤣.

Best one I've seen, didn't happen to me but the order receipt was shown, was ordered tampax and received twix 😂 they either thought -

1. same shape 🤷‍♀️
2. if she needs those then she needs chocolate... Especially when we tell her we didn't have any 😂

I've had red wine subbed for white wine, that was annoying as at the time they didn't price match a sub either and the red was £8 more expensive. I don't even drink red, but the name on the receipt didn't look much different so I accepted it. Put me off online shopping for a while.

Not a sub, but ordered a chicken for Sunday dinner. Shopping due to arrive by 8pm Friday night, only arrived at 9.30pm. Chicken had a use by date of that day. FFS.

I use ocado. For several years and hardly ever get substitutions. Always closely matched but I bet I've had 4 in as many years

Ordered brandy butter...got olive oil spread.
Yummy on Christmas pudding...

Ordered toothpaste and got a packet of birds custard powder.

I’m a dot com picker and some of the subs the handset suggests are quite odd. Todays giggle was it wanting to substitute a giant bag of own brand frazzle style crisps for a multi pack of Doritos rather than any of the many tortilla chip snacks we sell. We can override it and sub something more sensible but some of the kids they employ have no common sense and sub the weirdest stuff.

You’ve definitely got to watch for it trying to sub meat options for veggie ones. Not sure who programs this stuff.

Ordered bazuka verruca gel. Got Tena Lady ultra pads...