To think pre-ordered Xmas collections won't be substituted

[SouthWestmom]

Genuinely interested - I always knew the delivery services from supermarkets were just slots near Xmas and picked on the day so no guarantee of the products being delivered.

This year though I did two Christmas collect (different stores) ore -order things and both times was made aware on collection of substitutes.

Genuinely thought it was a way to guarantee the stuff you wanted

Once I had ordered a super fancy 3 bird roast to collect from waitrose and when I went to collect it wasn't there. Was allowed to pick any bird from the shelves for no charge, and also given a bottle of champagne free. This was probably the early days of online orders though I can't imagine that happening now. We had a huge goose that year. Lovely.

Pick a turkey from a shelf these days!

Regular online shopping I get. This was the 'order now to collect for Christmas' stuff

With most supermarket Christmas online ordering, you’re reserving the slot, not the food itself.

We got ours from M & S today, preorder and collection from store. We had no substitutions at all. We ordered last year and we were told when we put our order in that the turkey we wanted was no out of stock. So I wonder if they have a different system from say, Tesco or Sainsbury’s.

Ocado are good but even with them it’s not guaranteed.

I checked out on my order a couple of weeks ago. I also always find items not delivered at my local supermarket. It's just annoying having to make a trip out when the idea was to have it delivered. I'd still much rather have to go and pick up a few bits than have to do an entire Christmas shop!

Underthecedartree Me too, I'd rather pick up the odd item or decide to manage without than tackle a full shop at a supermarket this close to Christmas. DP went to his local Asda today and said it was bedlam.

I was warned, 5 years or so ago, that Ocado aren’t good at supplying the products ordered at Christmas but I haven’t found this to be true so far. I have my last preChristmas delivery tomorrow morning and have just found that £120 of goods has one stubstitution, guacamole! I try to time my last preChristmas delivery to leave enough time to dash to the shops if it doesn’t go as planned or, more likely, I overlook something needed - this year that’s milk!!

Ocado delivery arrived today, no substitutions, and only one item missing (Waitrose fish fingers, so a definite non essential!), So very happy here. Still managed to forget some things though, but will be a quick nip into a supermarket rather than a massive shop.

However I will admit to ordering two bags of carrots and parsnips. I didn't realise they were 2kg per bag... Think I'll be making some soup after Christmas

I was warned, 5 years or so ago, that Ocado aren’t good at supplying the products ordered at Christmas but I haven’t found this to be true so far.

In all the years I’ve used Ocado at Christmas, they have never let me down and substituted anything.

@TitsInAbsentia

I know! Everyone’s orders for the whole day on this van were totally mixed up except the fresh stuff. They are coming again tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Update -- Delivery was booked 9.30-10.30. Got a text at 9.10 to say coming between 1.07-10.30. Ten minutes later got another text to say they'll be later and will deliver at 11.13pm. Turned up at 10.10pm . Driver said they aren't allowed to be more than 15 minutes early so they alert customer then another text goes out.

Driver didn't say a word about substitutions and seemed surprised we didn't want 6/14 of them.

If two things are needing substituting then dong give the same two items as alternatives ffs.

I'll check in tomorrow (it's a delivery not a pre order though) and at worst I'll be missing wine and potatoes / veg which I have a choice of supermarkets to brave!

Have Turkey, beef joint, chippolatas, stuffing, gravy and Yorkshires (bought over past few days in dribs and drabs..... I live a few minutes from and M&S, Sainsburys and Waitrose)

Just go to the shop and pick exactly what you want?

The plan was to send dh to m&s tomorrow to pick up pre ordered Turkey and desert while I stay at home to clean, I'm stressing now that they will be substituting my Turkey for something else which dh will happily accept. I'm going to have to go with him or face trying to feed 12 on a pack of sausages for Christmas dinner.

Lemon the service wouldn't be offered if no one wanted it. I hoped to avoid not getting what I wanted because they were already sold out.

I'm not sure if it depends where you are but Asda wasn't any busier than you're average Saturday and I got everything I need for a glorified Sunday dinner!

Out of curiosity who has noticed shops in towns and cities haven't been as busy this year?

The pub has a menu for Xmas Day, Boxing Day and a general festive menu. All this has to pre ordered to make sure we have to stock in.

So, bearing that in mind (and that pre orders had to be in 3 weeks ago) we would have everything, right? No. Turkey we are ok for. Pretty much everything else is either OOS or limited. This is due (as it always is) to the twats at head office who have never done anything in a restaurant than eat in it, under estimating demand and then not being able to get more because the suppliers are being held to ransom over prices so only produce what is required as they cannot afford to hold more stock in case they have to bin it.

Every. Single. Year.

I have a friend in retail and its the same there too. ITs because its all done with wonderful algorithms that can apprently predict demand far better than a human being saying "We averaged 200 covers per site last year, but this years bookings are averaging 220 so we need more stock".

It would be interesting to find out which supermarkets have been best / worst at this and, does it depend on where you live.

I had Sainsbury's delivery this morning, free range turkey crown in my basket since the day the slot was released but they delivered full size turkey for 12 people. There's only 3 eating it. Popped into Lidl and they had plenty left.

Also bizarrely my washing powder was substituted for air freshener.

I think Sainsbury's is worst for substitutes in that you can get such strange swaps, mainly the substitutes I've had from Tesco/ Asda have made sense. Not tried Waitrose/ Ocado.

Our Tesco delivery came today. All the 'Festive Food to Order stuff was there - the brochure and the website were very clear that in order to guarantee it, you had to order and checkout by a certain date and after that date, those items could not be amended. Everything else was picked from the warehouse (ours comes from a huge warehouse, not a store) so all fresh food had good dates on them BUT once again, the meat I wanted for Christmas Day, suddenly is unavailable today - it was showing as available yesterday and there was no substitute. Very, very annoying, especially as that was the first thing in my basket when I booked the slot almost a month ago. I really think that for meat, there should be a slightly different system at Christmas - maybe all meat should have to be in the basket by a certain date. Luckily, dh was able to dash to the nearest tesco and pick up the meat I need.

Much easier to do a very late / very early shop in store. My best ever idea was to start doing a 1am jaunt around Tesco which results in getting every item on my shopping list and the store is really quiet apart from people refilling shelves

My Tesco is like some post old Soviet store at that time. Almost no fruit and vegetables and difficult if not impossible too navigate the aisles as those huge movable crate things block them. Plus low mounds or rubbish in places as they sweep the store.

I’m an online shopper (I pick your shopping) and unfortunately, if we don’t have what you want in stock, we are told we must sub.

Nothing is held back. We get what we get and that is it

ocado delivery today, everything arrived with just one substitution , a different brand of cream. So very happy with my first Christmas food delivery, will do it again next year, so much better than battling abusy shop.

My order is coming today so at least there is tomorrow to go out and get stuff that didn't arrive.

I got my sainsburys order yesterday, one substitute (no Christmas cupcakes for DS so I got a Cadbury gateau instead) which was absolutely fine.

Everything else was there, and it was 10 mins early.

Basically a christmas miracle!

Mines missing an item for today. Croissants for our Christmas breakfast! I'm going to have to nip to the shops to get some before my delivery arrives!

I just collected my "Christmas Food to Order" shop from Sainsburys and everything was there. To give credit to Sainsburys we have used their service for Christmas for the last few years and never had a missing or substituted item. I don't get the normal grocery delivery from them so I can't comment on how well they do for that.

The main shop will be arriving from Ocado this morning and there are no substitutions or missing items, so happy days for us. DH will pick up the Turkey and Goose after work from the butcher and then it's feet up all the way.

My m&s turkey packaging had burst when I went to collect last year. They didn’t have the same to swap with but let me choose from bigger/better options. I’m collecting at 8am tomorrow to fingers crossed