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

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.

Me too. Supermarkets don't help themselves by making the Christmas delivery slots a big deal: advertising in advance when they'll open up, giving priority to delivery pass holders, etc - it sets the expectation that there's something special about them.

Just received my order. They substituted a different champagne for my preferred one - I declined the sub and will have to hit the wine shop tomorrow. Everything else was there but I ordered the meats from my butcher and cheeses from my deli so there really wasn’t anything crucial to mess up.

Collected my M&S order tonight at 2030 and it was all there as ordered and not a single person in the queue!

@Gingertam, I get what you are saying but a) as there was literally no one else in the queue at the time , it did seem a little...jobsworth?
b) Having run an M&S food department I know full well my order was already in a trolley out the back... I would never have made a customer wait like that in my store ...

No turkey crown! Argh what is the point of booking a slot four weeks ago?

What are they delivering instead @LishaFlynn? What a nightmare!

A 6.5kg whole turkey!! Not quite the late morning I was hoping for and no room in oven to cook anything else now 😂🤦‍♀️

Eeeek! I wouldn’t know what to do with a whole one

Ocado is brilliant. Very rarely get substitutes. X

My Ocado order is due this morning 09:30 - 10:30, I'm missing one side salad and another has been substituted (won't accept the sub) we can manage without both (for tonight's buffet tea) and there's no giant crumpets (I'll pick up oat cakes from the cheese shop as replacements but they're hardly essentials) everything else is on it's way. I think this is the first missing or subbed items I've had Christmas Eve from Ocado but certainly not a disaster if I wasn't going out anyway I wouldn't bother fetching replacements.

My Waitrose order arrives this am . Checked their email this am and only sub is Waitrose Duchy chestnuts in place of their ordinary chestnuts so that’s ok.

I don't usually shop at Morrisons but I pre-ordered four items I liked the look of for collection yesterday morning. Arrived there to find two items were not available. They were vegan party food items. No subs were offered. So I had two items to collect worth a total of £11 for which I had paid a £15 deposit. Then the sales assistant didn't want to refund me the difference because "deposits are non-refundable". WTAF? Cue major row and the manager being called, who said to sales assistant "What on earth are you doing?" and handed me four quid. Of course I still have the problem of sourcing replacements for the missing items. Merry fucking Christmas.

I got the email yesterday morning telling me about the 2 subs (very sensible- my satsumas are just not seedless and slightly different carrots) and the fact that they didn’t have the small, 250g packet of sprouts available and no sub for my delivery in the evening.

Not a problem, I was in town anyway at the time so I picked some up. Slightly more, but not an issue even though it’s just me and DS(7) who eats them and it was only for 1 meal.

Then the delivery arrived last night. 1.5kg (3 larger bags) of sprouts provided free of charge!

So if anyone has any ideas of what I can do with that many sprouts, before I take them next door and offer them to their guinea pigs......

I placed my Ocado Christmas order back in October. The first thing we added was wine - we have changed most of the order between now and October but we haven't changed the wine. Ocado are delivering this morning and the wine has been substituted! I don't really understand how that could happen when we ordered it in October but... it's not the end of the world. It's only wine, everything else is there (bar a bag off salad leaves which apparently had no alternative substitution). I was expecting more missing items or substitutions so I'm happy.

I ordered a small rib of beef, up to 3.5kg from Waitrose Entertaining weeks ago and was given a 5kg one yesterday when we collected and charged accordingly!!! It was very expensive!!

Ours was only missing sprouts. That’s the best one I’ve had, basically unless you want to fight your way through crowds you have to accept you’ll get what they have!

That's unfair, noidea. I remember about 20 years ago M&S doing similar to me, trying to make me pay for a fancy turkey crown much more expensive than the small whole turkey I'd ordered - I refused to budge until they gave me the correct item or charged me only for what I'd ordered. I had more guts than money then!

Ocado are generally great but we had two substitutions and a missing item yesterday despite ordering them weeks and weeks ago.

What I don’t understand is, I had a notification last week that the stuffing I wanted was unavailable so was being removed from my basket (normal shopping slot, not Xmas pre-order). My shopping arrives, minus the stuffing. No substitute offered. I then go in store as needed something else, and there is the stuffing. On the shelf. For everyone see! It’s not even like it wasn’t there when the picker packed the order as it was removed last week!!

M and S pre order was collected without issue.

The o my way to guarantee your turkey is to use the pre order service, which usually closes a few days before Xmas and you pay a deposit. These are made to order unlike the standard deliveries that are picked from the shelves. You can cancel your delivery until the last minute it’s so there is no way the supermarket will ensure that they have all items in stock that have been ordered

We just got our morrisons order. It has Yorkshire puddings and pigs in blankets that we didn't order, but driver said we can keep them!
No salmon or lemons, but they aren't necessary for any meals. And tried to sub whole milk for semi so will need to go out to local shop for that for DS.

Just collected our m&s order. No issue and it was dead. Did the supermarket shop yesterday and it was surprisingly quiet! It was only a small shop due to me doing some good pre-planning and ordering all freezable and store cupboard items over the last few weeks. Today's was fresh veg, milk and cream and bread.

Slightly miffed that my butchers order wasn't ready, apparently it hadn't been "written up in the book" they had everything but I had to wait for it all to be located, weighed, rung up etc. Rather than it being all bagged up waiting for me as I expected (ordered a month ago). Hardly seemed worth having gone in with my order form and deposit.

Butcher dropped the rolled breast and pigs in blankets at 8, lucky I was up!

Collected my M&S order this morning. The queue was bigger than I expected, but that just gave me chance to pick up last-minute extras! Everything was present & correct.