AIBU to think Sainsbury's policy is unacceptable?

[Maskless]

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?

I’ve been shopping with Sainsbury’s online for years and I’ve occasionally had it where they’ve delivered less than I’ve ordered but it’s very rare - certainly didn’t know it was “a policy”.

Over the last few weeks I’ve had trouble getting a 1x4 pint carton of milk but they’ve always substituted with 2x2 pint cartons and 6 pack of apple/orange juice so they’ve subbed with 2x3 packs instead.

I’ve only had one delivery where I’ve been left really pissed off. In the crate they’d placed 2 pumpkins, a bunch of bananas and box of 6 eggs nothing else. By the time I received it in the evening the bananas were squashed and bruised and half the eggs were smashed, I couldn’t believe they’d allowed the pumpkins to roll around like that. Sainsbury’s did refund me for it and I did manage to nip out and replace the bananas and eggs but the whole thing was avoidable and ridiculous.

I order dog food from Amazon rather than with the supermarket shop. That way it comes direct from the warehouse and availability more predictable than what's on the supermarket shelves.

Also the inherent implication is that an in-store shopper is more important and entitled to stock than an online shopper.

OK, message received, loud and clear.

It's a silly policy. Where I work you would have got 3 boxes unless they weren't available either.
However I can't get worked up about this stuff. I suspect the real reason was they only had 1 x 12 pack but the person you spoke to won't have known that and just made up a reason.

That is silly, and also inconsistent,
I had a tesco order this week, ordered a 12 pack of walkers crisps, they subbed for 2 x 6 packets

Oops just realised mine was tesco yours was sainsburys 🤦‍♀️ in my head you said tesco

@NConrepeat

Also the inherent implication is that an in-store shopper is more important and entitled to stock than an online shopper.

OK, message received, loud and clear.

This is not the case in the shop I work at, if its there its picked if its not then its subbed. None of this leaving some for someone else based on personal judgement of what's on the shelf, there could be more stock due in. Only time things were limited was lockdown 1 and even that was a piss take. Toilet roll shortage and majority of orders had theirs subbed because you had to have what there was, but we had people refusing subs because the paper was the wrong colour or the wrong scent. We tried so hard to fulfil orders and alot was thrown straight back at us.

I think it must vary by store, my substitutions are always good from my local Sainsbury’s.

During lockdown I tried to order 2 packs of cod fish cakes from Sainsbury's, apparently that counted as a bulk buy and wasn't allowed so I ordered a pack of cod and a pack of tuna fish cakes. On the day of delivery the tuna fish cakes were not available and were substituted with cod fish cakes!! So I ended up with the 2 packs I wanted.

We had a lot of bizarre substitutions but that was definitely our biggest laugh.