AIBU to think Sainsbury's policy is unacceptable?

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I have one supermarket delivery a month. I always order 40 cat food pouches.

Delivery due later today, received email this morning saying they did not have a box of 40 so are sending instead one box of 12.

I would have expected 3 boxes of 12 (= 36 pouches) as a sub (or even 4, making 48). So I phoned them and asked why they had not sent more than one box of 12. Their answer astonished me: they only sub "one for one", regardless of how many individual items the customer ordered.

So if a customer ordered a box of 36 Coca-Colas, they could sub that with one can of Coke.

AIBU to think that they ought to send as many packs as needed to fulfill as closely as possible what the customer ordered?

Sainsbury’s are rubbish for deliveries… try Waitrose instead they have brilliant substitutes and never charge more if the substitute is more expensive.

@Myusernameisnotmyusernameno

I've never had that before. I've ordered x amount of something and been subbed with the same amount. If it more I've been refunded the difference. This sounds a bit fishy to me

I've had it happen the other way around. I ordered a pack of 10 items (e.g. J cloths). They were on offer, e.g. £0.50. Instead I was subbed a pack of 50, not on offer, £5. Morrisons would not refund (this was in the shielding days when they left carrier bags on doorstep, knocked and drove off).

@WeAllHaveWings

I don't use Sainsbury, but can you put text in your substitution to say if not available please add 3 x 12 to my basket (and you will pay for them) instead.

No, the only amendment you can make is to say "no substitutions" for certain items. There's nowhere to specify alternatives.

@Wejustdontknow that is why I avoid online orders as much as possible. I don't want to have the cost of already expensive food doubled and potentially even replaced with something I can't eat.

No help to you, but sending sympathy!

The same happened to us when we all had covid.

The one box of 40 cat pouches we ordered was substituted with 1 single pouch for the cats to share.

Luckily my friend has an extensive Brexit stash and she was able to help us out until the hastily cobbled together Zooplus order arrived.

I order cat food every week. Lately it turns up about 1 order in 3. Usually it's not even subbed.

My Sainsbury’s is also poor with the substitutions. I ordered a pack of 2 steaks. They didn’t have the pack of 2 so substituted for just 1 steak. Not much good for feeding 2 of us. I think the packers are told to try and make sure any substitutions don’t cost them more

@WildFlowerBees - sometimes when you're adding to your shopping it'll tell you if something you ordered before is no longer in stock and you can pick something else or it will just remove it from your list and assume no sub is required. It's not perfect, but it works for me.

Tescos and Asda would have sent you 48.

Tescos don't do that they would have sent you 4 boxes. Home bargains have the boxes of 80 whiskas pouches and it's cheap as chips, worth a visit if you have one.

@SquirryTheSquirrel 3 pouches a day????? Good lord my cat would be bariatric if I gave her that much! She has 1 pouch a day split into two meals and topped up with some kibble. You are definitely over feeding your cats!!!

@Geamhradh

It's daft and illogical. But I expect you're after compensation and some freebs, so try Twitter.

No, I absolutely do NOT seek "compensation". You missed the point, clearly.

I simply wanted to run a poll to see if anyone else thinks that what they are doing is daft.

It's also losing them money.

From the PP, it seems that the policy isn't even consistent across Sainsbury.

Thanks everyone for replying.

So hard luck if you are a disabled non driver!

We use Tesco and our subs are usually better than what we ordered e.g a pack of 4 own brand cornetto style ice cream subbed for a 6 pack of actual cornettos of the same flavour but I thought I’d share my favourite subs ever:

My Mum years ago when online shopping hadnt been around long got 6 kiwi brand shoe polishes instead of a 6 pack of kiwi fruit.

We got a bottle of fairy washing up liquid and a 3 pack of sponges instead of dishwasher tablets about 5 years ago when we first moved in to a house with a dishwasher which somewhat spoilt our excitement at not having too wash up for once 🤣

I use Tesco and while occasionally they may not have the exact item there is usually some sort of reasonable replacement. For example I order 12 large tangerines so they send only 6 and a bag of 6 easy peelers as a sub for the other 6.

Having said that I usually put a suggestion in the "alternatives" line eg "any medium white wine" if they dont have the brand I want.

I'm reading every single response, and finding it interesting hearing all the experiences!

To answer questions, what I ordered (40) cost £10. The subbed box of 12 cost £3.50. So they could have sent me 3 x 12 and billed me the original £10, taking a loss of 50p (as per their promise). As it was, I refused the sub and made the driver take it back again, so they lost the whole £10 sale. After reading a suggestion on here I have now ordered 84 pouches for £26 on Amazon, free delivery.

Yes, as some posters suggested, I do not drive. Moreover, I am disabled.

I have one cat and he eats a pouch a day with an extra one now and again so 40 a month is perfect. He also has kibble on request if peckish. The fussy sod refuses to eat tinned food, but will eat that same brand if it comes from a pouch (go figure).

@Soubriquet

That’s not right

I’m a Sainsbury’s online picker and I always sub up to the amount not the time

So I would have given 4 boxes of cat food not just the 1

You might do this. But I have the same problem as OP and have done for years. I actually mentioned it on a thread a while ago, and another Sainsbury's picker told me it's because they're leaving stock of what they're short of for other shoppers (my illustration then was I'd ordered 2 x 8 crumpets and was sent 1 x 9 instead) and I was essentially greedy for wanting close to the number I'd ordered (the way their subs price promise works means I'd have been out of pocket if I'd have accepted them too).

Maybe it's an issue with some stores?

In all honesty I think its down to the picker, because some just see it as a job not the actual fact it's someone's shopping. Because the picks may be done so early in the morning it's easy to forget there is customers if that makes sense as your literally working through a list in an empty shop.

@PlanDeRaccordement

YABU

• first there’s a supply shortage so they may not have had 4 spare boxes of 12 pouches not ordered by other customers

-second pouches are the worst way to feed your pets from environmental standpoint as they all end up in a landfill. You should be buying tins which have 4 servings per tin AND are recyclable.

Nice idea, but cats many are incredibly fussy and fickle eaters and will literally refuse all food rather than eat something they don't want to. Mine will pretty much only eat Felix AGAIL, Iams, or Gourmet gold.

I'm another Zooplus advocate (4 of my own and fosterer and I would love my own cats to eat the canned German foods that they sell like Smilla or Carny because it's canned and better quality/higher meat so better for them, and probably works out cheaper than sachets, but they won't eat it, just ignore it and go out and catch their own.

Plus a can will last a single cat 2 days usually, so you have to keep it fresh and cats won't eat fridge cold food, so you find yourself playing a game of planning ahead with the cat food to get it up to room temperature for when they want to eat it. Best tip if you have one or two cats that will eat canned food is freeze it in small portions and get into a defrosting routine.

On the matter of sachet portion size I think 3 per day is too many for most cats but most of ours will usually eat dry food too, some exclusively so. For my own 4, they share 2-3 packs twice a day, with free access to dry food and one of the cats probably only eats dry food. I did used to give them a sachet each twice a day, but what would happen would be that the three girls would leave some and the boy would hoover it all up, as well as his own, some dry food and whatever he caught and he ended up quite overweight. So now I put out less so there's less leftovers for him and it seems to be working.

Anyway, back to the OP, YANBU to be annoyed. If the supermarket shopping doesn't deliver the appropriate quantity, it is a complete waste of time, because that usually means you need to go shopping again. TBH, I'd look for another supplier because then you can only usually order what they have in stock. If you have Amazon Prime, that might be a good shout as you won't need to order a minimum amount to cover postage.

Of course if you put in a bulk order to get free postage, your cat will immediately decide that it doesn't like whatever food it's been happily eating for years.

Ah, good, you've got a reasonable solution from Amazon.

I dont know how it would work with other supermarkets but when the first lockdown happened I had difficulty in getting a slot, despite the fact that I have been using online delivery from Tesco for years. I googled the email address of the ceo and the complaint was picked up by the executive team who responded within hours. They fixed me up with a priority slot arrangement and I have not had problems since. If you are disabled/non driver you are pretty much stuffed if an essential item is missing so I would certainly bring this matter to their attention.

@Matilda15

We use Tesco and our subs are usually better than what we ordered e.g a pack of 4 own brand cornetto style ice cream subbed for a 6 pack of actual cornettos of the same flavour but I thought I’d share my favourite subs ever:

My Mum years ago when online shopping hadnt been around long got 6 kiwi brand shoe polishes instead of a 6 pack of kiwi fruit.

We got a bottle of fairy washing up liquid and a 3 pack of sponges instead of dishwasher tablets about 5 years ago when we first moved in to a house with a dishwasher which somewhat spoilt our excitement at not having too wash up for once 🤣

My favourite-ever sub was when I order a Happy Anniversary card from Asda and they subbed it with a Happy Birthday card. Luckily I had a biro and was able to make the appropriate changes.

I’ve been using Sainsbugs online delivery for six months, and haven’t had any problems. There have been occasional substitutions, but always acceptable products and equivalent quantities.
Last week I ordered 2 boxes of Sheba fish cat food in jelly. They had none, so sent me two boxes of Sheba fish in gravy. Exactly the same number of sachets, which was fine.
I often get more expensive substitutes for the same price, which is nice! For example organic instead of standard, or matured Scotch steak instead of own brand steak.
There is always a no quibble return too - you can reject any product, substitute or not, if you aren’t happy with it.
I wonder if it varies between stores? My “local” one is excellent, even though it is 20 miles away and has to serve a couple of thousand square miles of Perthshire and part of Fife.

Sainsburys online shopping is rubbish in all ways, the no bags policy is terrible for anyone elderly or disabled. The man practically threw my mum's shopping at her last week & was tutting when she wasn't going fast enough for him. The substitutions are at best awful, I know it is because it is picked in store, the ones that are done from the warehouse are far better.

YANBU

Asda don’t seem to do this, I ordered a 2 pint bottle of milk but it was out of stock so I got 2 1 pint bottles instead which is entirely reasonable

They did send AA batteries when I’d ordered AAA though, which baffled even the driver. Literally any AAA batteries would have been fine, I highly doubt every single brand was out of stock!

Generally though I usually get reasonable subs which I only really reject for personal taste (wrong flavour yogurts for example)

I ordered two parsnips, by substitute I received two packs of parsnips. I did ask the delivery guy what was up, he said the picker clearly had no clue.