What on earth were they thinking?!

[PissTakeSubstitution]

Hardly ever tick ‘allow substitutions’ on my online shop because of past experience, however I didn’t want to risk no wine and I’m not too fussy.

AIBU to think this was a ridiculous substitution? There must have been 20+ different white wines in the price range I’d selected, yet for some unknown reason the person picking this shop decided to an Alcohol Free bottle was the closest match.

Worst still DH didn’t notice it was an alcohol free bottle and accepted the substitute

Cream would not be the key word in a sentence reading "cream kettle" 😂

I didn't say they were stupid - I said some of the (computer generated) suggestions were stupid.

Most of the staff in my Tesco, including the pickers, are very helpful so I guess there is some time allowed to answer queries and, therefore, to pick more sensible options where they know there is a more sensible option.

Maybe in Tesco not at Asda. Regardless of the ridiculous pick rate we were still expecting to help customers with queries and what can you do? Could hardly say fuck off I've got 20 minutes to pick 100 items.

YANBU, AF wine is evil.

I ordered a teapot from Amazon as a present for MIL. They substituted a toad house 🤷🏼‍♀️

I was gonna reply to this but @Rosebel said it perfectly

Alcohol free ine? What exactly is the point of that?!?😂
The last couple of times with Sainsbury's deliveries the picker telephoned me to check on substitutions. I thought that was nice.

Your husband didn't notice.
It must have been a good taste match!

I stopped allowing substitutions after I got a pack of AA batteries instead of AAA.

Hahaha this cheered me up!

Frankly, OP, I'd be writing to the papers, the regulators, and my MP.

To be honest, I've never changed a nappy in my life. I only know from Mumsnet that the size relates to the age of the baby and not, say, the level of absorbency as with sanitary towels.

Literally😭

The person who packed your shopping is seriously bad vibes!

I was once craving chocolate cake, They substituted it with a scented candle lol

Does anyone ever give feedback to the store management or HQ, some of substitutions are clearly nonsensical and should be referred back to the IT department for amendment on the system.
For example the cream fitted sheet subbed with a cream kettle, the Twix sent instead of Tampax and lemon toilet cleaner sent when lemon juice was ordered.
It's as if an actual human being never glances through the suggestions for substitutes before they go live. Key words are clearly not good enough.

That’s worse than my coffee being replaced by decaf! Two bloody bags of ground decaf coffee.

😂
This 😁
I'd be legit fuming, think I'd cry 🤣

Some of these examples are very funny, thanks for the laughs, I’ve had a tough day in a lot of pain!

I have deliveries from Tesco and don’t have many substitutions thankfully, none have been totally useless but I do refuse to accept some of them if they don’t meet my needs. I also phone Tesco if I’m unhappy about the quality of an item, the other week I had some ice lollies in a damaged box and had been defrosted and refrozen but in odd shapes! My loaf of sliced bread was also squashed and as I told the guy, only suitable for breadcrumbs! I did not spot the problems when the delivery man was here but got a full refund over the phone.

I have mobility issues and get them to bring the boxes into my kitchen for me to unload, the drivers are so helpful and don’t rush me so I’m very grateful for all they do.

I like the recent introduction of the email sent before the delivery which lists substitutions or unavailable items.

😕😂
Maybe they thought a good sniff would quell your craving?! 🤣

Then it could be done by robots - I don't know exactly where the boundaries are.

I honestly think some stores just do this for the joke.
Morrisons, often had no ketchup at all, Ocado recently no kitchen roll at all.
But Morrisons locally are the worst offender.
I had a click and collect and my son had requested a ham and pineapple pizza.
On receiving the shopping, there were none available, so while husband put the shopping in the car, I went into Morrison’s.
There were 6 ham and pineapple pizzas in the fresh boxed section alone, I didn’t even bother with the frozen.
Weve had other ridiculous substitutions too, so gave up with their deliveries

A couple of weeks ago, from Tesco, I ordered one packet of those kippers that you put in a microwave, as DH likes them occasionally..

They were out of stock, fair enough. But they sent me 16 packets of fresh mackerel as a sub..😳

All I could see was dead eyed fish looking surprised - not half as startled as I was though.

I gave them back to the driver and he toddled off with a sigh and a carrier bag full of fish. 🙄

The Asda delivery driver tried to argue with me giving back a substitution last week. Apparently the brand of ketchup makes no difference 🙄

Yesterday Morrisons tried to substitute TicTacs with a bottle of infant calpol! I declined

Depending on the store and location, some are picked from the store and some from the depot e.g. my local ASDA is definitely store picked, but a mate who drove for Tesco told me their deliveries were all from the depot. So finding the item at the nearest store when they said it was out of stock could be because it was a depot pick.

I still don't believe there was no milk whatsoever a month or so ago, and they could find no substitutes in the entire store. I have noticed lately (especially with ASDA) that there are very rarely upgraded subs any more e.g. in the milk case above they wouldn't have subbed Arla or Cravendale if they were out of own brand.

The other thing that seems to have gone by the wayside recently is them picking the freshest produce. I ordered 2 packs of cheapo cooked chicken for the cats and it had ONE day left to the eat by date. That shouldn't even have been on the normal shelf but in the yellow sticker section with that little amount of time left.