Wildest online shop substitutions

[MintSticks]

Tesco have just delivered our online grocery shop and it’s always interesting to see what substitutions have been made.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the pickers must by and large be teenage boys with little to no experience doing a grocery shop.

One of the things I’d ordered today was a pot of jam. I scrolled through around 6 pages of jams online and settled upon the value jam, added it to the basket and didn’t think it warranted a note for the picker.

What I got was 2 jars of shredless marmalade. 🥴🥴

I mean, any jam would have done, seeded, seedless, raspberry, strawberry..who thinks marmalade is an accurate sub for jam? I’m looking forward to having peanut butter and marmalade on my toast this week 🤣🤣🤢🤢

Another time I was planning a low calorie/low carb menu for myself so ordered frozen cauliflower rice and instead got frozen rice which defeated the object.

Anyone else have some absolutely random/funny sub stories?

A 10 pack of innocent smoothies instead of a sack of spuds, mind blown that someone thought they were even vaguely similar but it was price matched so quite a win actually!

Not mine but remember reading once that someone got sent 2 bottles of factor 15 Suncream instead of 1 factor 30 bottle 😆

Ordered a pack of covid tests, got sent haemorrhoid cream

I ordered some lamb chops and got an entire leg of lamb for free as they didn't have what I wanted

I was delighted 😁
Thank you tesco!

Ordered tub of pistachio nuts. Received a packet of rich tea fingers. I assume the intermediate step was ginger nuts.

The substitutions are usually selected by their systems so it's not the packers fault, teenage boy or otherwise! Marmalade is basically jam and is found next to jam usually so that makes sense.

I ordered sausages and got baby wipes 🤷‍♀️

A bag of carrots instead of a tin of French onion soup. I sometimes wonder what the thought process was. I could understand them delivering onions, I could understand carrots if I had ordered carrot soup but carrots for onion soup baffles me.

I ordered onions and received a pack of light bulbs.

ordered a bag of crisps in Sainsbury’s was a 6 pack of walkers or something like that and they substituted the crisps for another bag as they weren’t available (nothing unusual there) only they substituted it for FIVE bags when I only ordered one 🤦🏻 I didn’t keep it as you pay for the subs in Sainsbury’s (yes I know they give you a refund to use off your next order but I don’t really shop with them it was a one off)

Ordered Italian style meatballs and veggies to cook in oven, got sent Korean style spicy beef strips

Ordered size 4+ nappies, got sent size 1 newborn nappies

ordered 2.5kg pack of potatoes, got sent 4 small baking potatoes

Ordered onions and got cheese and onion spread.

Ordered a book of six first-class stamps. Out of stock, so they substituted with a book of twelve first-class stamps at no extra cost. Ker-ching!

Ordered supermarket own Calpol and got a strawberry boiled sweet type lolly. Obviously too tight to sub with actual Calpol.

Ordered herbal essences honey shampoo and conditioner and got real honey

I ordered a packet of beef mince and received a large bag of beef dog food.
Fortunately I have a dog.

Pickers are under an enormous amount of pressure to pick quickly, they are timed and get pulled up if their pick rate is down, even though they are constantly interrupted and expected to signpost customers around the store, as well as deal with spillages and complaints re items going up in price, or items being moved, neither has anything to with them.
Its a horrible job and l don' t miss it one bit.
They don't decide the substitutes, it just comes up, so it could either be a sub that the customer ordered or one the system throws out.

I worked for Sainsburys doing online ten-ish years ago. It was as someone else said a hellish job. Nowadays the scanners give you a suggestion of what to pick but when I was doing it you had to find a substitute. You had to substitute the missing item whether you could find a suitable substitute or not, it could result in a disciplinary if you didn't. It could also result in a disciplinary if your substitutions were always sent back. Once when the store was being refurbished I couldn't get to the drinking straws that someone wanted. I told my manager that there was nothing to substitute for straws but he insisted that there would be something. Off he toddled to the shop floor and came back with a pack of freezer bags! He thought that was a very sensible alternative to straws. I refused to scan them and made him scan them on his scanner.

I ordered tiger rolls. Got a large box of Maltesers

Don’t they pick in a warehouse? I’ve never seen anyone in a uniform filling trolleys in my local Sainsbury’s.

Ocado orders are picked by robots in a huge shed, I believe. Not much human involvement at all. Substitutions are still very unusual indeed on my orders.

Cornflakes instead of a bottle of red wine and cheese strings instead of buttermilk

I've seen pickers in my local Tesco and Asda as they are the biggest branches round here. My Sainsbury's doesn't have pickers as they use a more out of town branch, a staff member suggested I try there for lines not stocked as they keep a wider range for online orders.

Can do far better than that op

Chicken nuggets (frozen) when I ordered fresh chicken breast

Fish fingers when I ordered sole

But the best of all - newborn nappies when I ordered size 4 pull ups!

This was all in the same doomed delivery... I have never ordered from Tesco again despite it being 15 years ago.

Ocado used to be great, I abandoned them when they switched from Waitrose, Waitrose themselves didn't do a good job and Asda kept being 2 hours late with slightly thawed frozen foods

I've given up on online, except Majestic... you are great, always on time and bring just what I ordered (helps I can actually see the store but a rather nice man brings it right in for free saving me carrying it!

Meat haggis when I had ordered veggie haggis!

to be fair I had ordered one of each but the veggie one wasn’t in stock.

I once read on here instead of carrots somebody got condoms!!

Ordered Sauvignon Blanc, got ...........nothing! Apparently no wine at all
in Morrisons that day