Online grocery shopping substitutions

[TheObserverOne]

So I've just had my weekly shop delivered. I don't usually order online, but I'm working long shifts this week so did it for ease and there were a couple of substitutions.
A lasagne ready meal was substituted for Shepherds pie (I can just about live with that), but my women's disposable razors were replaced with MENS SHAVING FOAM
It's made me wonder; what's the most outrageous substitution you've received from your Russian roulette of groceries??

I've had some heinous wine substitutions before. Provence rose for Mateus for example. So always click the do not substitute button now. Had 12 over for late lunch and instead of shoulder of lamb they brought me 2 lamb steaks. Helpful. Worst was dr oeker pizza instead of baking powder. Computer looked at the brand not the product!

Wine gums instead of wine, was not happy!

I work as a picker for Sainsburys. If we get a product that isn't in stock the machine gives you a list of things you could sub it with but you can choose to ignore these and use your initiative. We know exactly the item you ordered as well as it tells you the exact location of the product and what it actually is. If we subbed some of the products that posters have been sent, we would be in trouble. I can only assume that other supermarkets have a different system.

I actually called Sainsburys on Boxing Day to ask them to thank my picker for making such brilliant choices when it came to substitutions. I knew a delivery on Boxing Day would be risky as they could be low on stock but we had one lot of house guests leaving and another lot arriving ready for Xmas Pt II and there was a lot of cooking to be done and the substitutions meant I could pretty much stick to my original meal plan. I decided that the picker must also be used to catering for crowds.

I once ordered sausage rolls for my daughters party and got substituted for real sausages and a roll of pre done puff pastry

I want to work as a picker.

I've had screw fit light bulbs subbed for bayonet fitting ones before but most subs are pretty sensible.

I always click for no subs for my tv guide and my fags.

I shop with asda and have found all my substitutions are within reason, experience when I ordered the prepared casserole veg and got a bag of broccoli instead. I get an email telling me what they'll be before it's delivered.

I'm a bit shocked that sainsburys charge extra if the substitution is more. Id always tick no substitutions if that was the case with mine.

Assquatch I came on this thread to mention that.
I think it's in classics. So funny!

frikadela01 If Sainsburys sub an item that costs more, you will receive a voucher in an email for the extra amount that you have paid. This is a recent thing though. We have to be very careful when picking now

snowwhiteandrosered ...that was my dd....she worked in tesco as a shopper

someone asked for a brand of PGtest and it wasn't in stock, and the sub recommended was condoms....in spite of there being several other types of PGtest available.

the shoppers can override the recommended sub, but it's a right palaver, and sometimes it's difficult to spot that it is a sub, so common sense doesn't even get a chance to kick in!

We get an online shop once a week and rarely get substitutions, although I find tesco are rather quick to tell you a product is unavailable. Which is frustrating when you were in the store the day before and there was loads, then drive there later that evening and strangely enough there is still loads of stock
My favourite delivery error was a rather life like rubber piggy dog toy that grunts..... Unloading the shopping at the same time as the driver, went to lift something onto the worktop to find it sitting there, my ds1 was going daft oinking for the rest of the day

Min is quite boring compared to some of these -AA batteries instead of the AAA ones ordered. I can sort of see the logic but it was a pretty useless substitution!

Ordered-3 x Chicken Enchilladas (one night a week I don't cook from scratch so highly looked forward to) received- 3 x Beef Burritos. Not a million miles away but not the bloody same, and I couldn't actually eat them as they were too spicy and set off an allergy. Still mildly traumatized from that one.

I online shopped from Tesco - instead of delivering from the ENORMOUS Tesco which is around 30 miles away, the delivery used to come from the, frankly, weeny little Tesco 28 1/8 miles away in the other direction. Which was, if the substitutions were anything to go by, permanently out of any stock whatsoever.

I no longer online shop. I work in one instead, and make my own substitutions.

I ordered a selection of 20 white and rose wines. ASDA brought 30 bottles of the same red

I ordered strawberry shampoo. ASDA brought me actual fresh raspberries

I ordered fungal nail cream stuff. ASDA brought me dog worming tablets

It's funny but so annoying and disappointing and completely defeats the objective of online shopping. We'd ordered white and rose wine to be delivered for a reason- no-one coming to the house liked red and we couldn't transport that much wine back from the supermarket as we don't have a car.

We don't shop at ASDA now.

Also really annoys me when they don't substitute and say that there no suitable replacements. I think that's okay if you're ordering something weird and exotic and unusual but crisps? Really? There are no other types of crisps available?

I declined a substitution of double choc chip muffins instead of choc chip. It was my fault, I wrote a list and my friend ordered, I meant english muffins to go with eggs and bacon and she ordered chocolate. She was very disappointed when I sent them back.

I had gluten free breadcrumbs as a substitute for gluten free spaghetti once and my sister received a Tesco value Swiss roll as a substitute for edible gold spray for cake decorating. It always makes me think of an episode of Psychoville where two sisters are trying to do voodoo but the herbs have been substituted by Asda for air freshener spray

g. However it was almost 3 years of sending the poor delivery man away with a very bemused expression before I realised a substitution of Bollinger or Moët champagne for waitrose own brand was at thei

Lovely stealth boast there ;) but seriously, how often do you buy champers!?

Someone I know ordered some rolling tobacco called Cutter's Choice which was substituted for pastry cutters!

Charlotte salad potatoes instead of big Maris Pipers for roasting. Grr.
No smoked salmon at all - apparently out of stock but 44 different packs (maybe different weight or smokiness ) shown as being available on the website. Could maybe have offered me one of these?
But most frustrating - vanilla extract instead of the peppermint extract I'd ordered for some serial killing of fruit flies. I bet the little sods love vanilla.

I had 14 tubs of Cow and Gate Stage 2 milk instead of the one tub of Cow and Gate stage 1 milk I had ordered. Thankfully the delivery man checked with me before getting them all out and I wasn't charged.

I ordered fast acting yeast for bread making and got a jar of marmite.

I also ordered furniture polish with beeswax and got some bloody candles.

Very tenuous links there!

Thread Hijack- Brent please, please tell me how you serial kill fruit flies with peppermint extract?! We have them, no idea where they are coming from, every so often a small cloud of them will rise out of somewhere not remotely related to fruit, they need to die.

I once ended up with 8 packs of pak choi (2 per pack) I had ordered one pack but there were a lot of my other grocery items out of stock e.g. Stir fry, lettuce substituted every out of stock with pak choi