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

@BeyondMyWits haha that's funny. I agree with your daughter. The girls and I dislike them, its only my husband that loves them! I promised him I'd get them, so think he will actually look for them first to open at christmas tea time!

My Christmas order from Ocado arrived on Sunday with three items substituted. One was fresh 'Christmassy' food so I wasn't too surprised, but the other two were long life non-Christmas items. I use Ocado regularly and they are usually pretty good, but I can remember having subs in xmas orders in previous years.

Tesco order arrived with one thing unavailable - a sachet of spices –and no subs. All Christmas food there. The Festive Food to Order stuff was in separate packaging with our name on and driver said they were ordered specially so wouldn't have been subbed. Can relax now and no need to go to shops at all, huzzah! Good luck everyone else.

Sainsbury's have made 4 subs on my order according to the email. None are Xmas Day items so it's fine.

Had my order from Ocado today - got everything I ordered and no substitutions. it arrived on the dot of 8am and the driver was so helpful and chatty.

Massive asda delivery today... 3 items unavailable so just not sent (roasties, pate and apples ) and lots of substitutes. Kitchen roll water damaged so unusable, so I'll need to go to the supermarket tomorrow anyway

Collected my food to order from M & S today. I've been doing it for years and never had a problem. To the people moaning about pick up times, they have to be strict as if there would be no point having slots and it would soon get in a mess,

Regarding substitutions - I asked a worker in Asda today and she said they don't pick the substitutions but the machine tells them .

After seeing this thread yesterday, I was concerned for my order, but it arrived from Ocado exactly on time, and no substitutions!

So my order came, 1 substitution (big bag of veg for smaller bag... I puree these for the little one and freeze so wasnt even xmas dinner related)

However only 3 of our 6 bottles of wine turned up. All refunded but I'm actually pissed off as I had a hospital appointment today with DC3 and my MIL was home with older kids / waiting for shopping. As they'd not said they were only delivering half the wine, MIL would have accepted the order (under my instruction, because as far as I knew it was all there!!). Thankfully I got back as the delivery van arrived so I spotted the issue. I'd have lost £30!!!!!

And I had to go out for more wine.

Just had Tesco delivery. Two substitutes- cat food so not a problem as they eat any cat food. And two no shows and not substitutes Which were tassimo pods.

Our Ocado order today has one very sensible substitution. We have used Ocado for years and the only problem we've ever had at Christmas has been getting a turkey crown at the very lowest weight in the range for the XL size when we had a big crowd. We always order for 22nd or 23rd to ensure we can fix anything that's missing, but haven't had to.

We did have an entire crate missed off an order recently, but that was fixed with a redelivery the next day.

There are a few things we don't ever seem to be able to get from Ocado - strawberries don't survive their delivery process and their cauliflowers are tiny.

People keep mentioning staff in Tesco... my Tesco delivery and their click and collect come from a distribution centre not a store.... but they unfortunately run out of things too.... it’s not put aside when you order it is picked in delivery order so they still run out of inane stuff and my local distribution depot has stopped stocking some of my everyday essentials

My Tesco order was all there - only unavailable was Calpol randomly.....

As others have said, the festive food for order is reserved in your name and comes in boxes with your name sticker attached so it cannot be sold to someone else.

Tesco order came this afternoon.

3 substitutions:

Prosecco instead of Cava

Whole cucumber instead of mini cucumbers

Family crackers instead of kids crackers

None of them are a problem (hoping the Prosecco will be dry enough though!)

The delivery driver said there's been a problem with the fresh meat today - and that we're only 1 of 2 deliveries he's made that had a complete order!

As someone who worked for an online supermarket, I've never understood... Why leave everything to the last minute, then complain it's not there.

Soo many times, .... I have an important dinner party tonight and something's need 3 hrs prep nncook time, and it's not arrived yet or it's missing.

Why do that?
Ok, you're extremely busy (I'm not talking about oldies or disabled), you don't have time to spend shopping the day before, so instead, you hope a stranger will find the exact shaped carrots you need, or whatever. Instead of ordering for the day before, "just in case", you hope to god your last minute idea to rely on someone else works.

Please someone explain to me, why you do this ... And as I said, I don't mean oldies or disabled who might not be able to go shop in-store.

Waitrose have a box to tick if you don't want substitutions. I'm not sure about other supermarkets. I think you have to tick the box when you order, though.

Why leave everything to the last minute
because you want fresh food?

Waitrose let me down today, they didn't have any stuffing available. V annoying when I ordered weeks ago. I can't buy any more Asim unable to get to a supermarket.

Obviously we'll survive without but it makes pre-order a bit pointless.

i'm going out tomorrow for all our food....if its not on the shelf will have something else but ive never had an issue in previous years

@Santasgotaredsackofitch ok let's spell it out, again. If you do an online shop and order say, 100 items, and they sub 5, or if you're really unlucky, 20, it's much easier to reject the subs and grab the 5-20 items than it is to do a shop for 100 items, yes? I would much rather "pop to the shops" than battle the supermarket with a trolley trying to do a full shop for 1+ hour. And no, I am not getting up at 6am to go shopping, that is more ludicrous to me than risking a few dodgy subs.

As it happens my shop arrived in full, and on time, so I don't need to be going anywhere which suits me very nicely!

M&S food to order dessert was substituted today with a cheaper off the shelf sub (paid less) ☹️

First time that has happened to me. Had sent ds(15) in to pickup as car park was mobbed and he just accepted substitute which I wasn't particularly happy with but wasn't going to try to park then queue to return.

1,2 or even 3 days before Christmas and stock is very limited in all supermarkets, customers shopping in a store increase by around 3,000 per day, delivery orders increase by about 8,000 items, that means there is an extra 3,000 people/transactions per day wanting exactly the same item as you've ordered and as for pre orders certain products are allocated to a store like turkeys but veg and stuff isnt, but a jar of cranberry, stuffing, sauces even butter last for months before Christmas, so why not buy them before as they are in supermarkets from early November, working in retail at Christmas is hard people loose all manners, become aggressive, rude and very inconsiderate to everyone

Ok but ordering in advance means I don't have to buy and store things, label them to avoid the kids eating them etc and still go out and buy the rest nearer the time.

Just surprised that pre-ordering isn't a guarantee - you'd think that with computerised systems it'd be doable. I'd also be happy to confirm a week or two in advance.

Even Ocado don't get it 100% right...2 substituions and 1 missing in todays Christmas order all items ordered when the slot was orginally booked on the first day i could book it!