To think grocery substitutions should weigh the same as the original item you ordered?

[Ivylea]

I’m sure there is one supermarket who does substitute for the weight ordered, or, at least, they used to - maybe Waitrose?

But today Asda have substituted a 180g bag of own brand salad with a branded 120g bag of salad. Yes, I pay the ‘original’ cost of £1 (even though the branded salad is more expensive), but I didn’t want to spend £1 for just 120g.

And they’ve also substituted a 240g pack of roast chicken with a 160g one. Both cost £2.95.

Last week, they substituted a 250g pack of butter with a 200g one.

AIBU to think the substitutions should give you the same amount of product, and/or charge you proportionately?

They say they will never charge you more for substitutions, which is true. But you do actually end up paying a lot more per gram or per item.

I've just.lookes through my last 4 deliveries. Once I got 250 g beans when I ordered 300 and once I got 300 g when I ordered 200 peppers

It's not a issue I've been aware of happening we shop with Waitrose and usually their substitutions are ok. We had 1 issue recently where a vegetarian pie was substituted.for a meat one. I did complain about this and got a nice email.back. refunding me the money and saying they are updating the subs for that pie so not would not occur again.

They never quibble if I return substitutions I don't want. Like recent chamomile soap subbed for aloe Vera soap.

It’s not great. Pickers under time pressure and probably a lot are teenagers who don’t actually do their own shopping and/or don’t apply common sense.
But that’s why you can always reject. Online shopping isn’t perfect, just like sometimes you go to the store and they don’t have what you wanted on the shelf, so you end up spending more than you wanted to, or having to change your dinner plans to a different recipe. It’s annoying but it is still pretty convenient to get your shopping delivered.

That said, the stealth giving you less for your money by making a substitution that is higher priced per gram is probably technically against consumer law and relies on the customer being observant enough to notice, it’s the kind of thing that the likes of Which? or MSE would love to call out. You could email one of their journalists and see if interested in taking it up.

I found this with Tesco. They used to substitute fairly well, but it must have cost them too much, because they started doing things like substituting two packs of courgettes (£3 total) for one organic pack (£2.50 and a 50p refund) where once it would have been two organic packs.

I could have rejected it, but I wanted 6 courgettes, had 2, and rejecting it would mean none at all!

Also substituting vegan items with non-vegan items. If the vegan ready made mash is sold out the only suitable substitution is a potato, not dairy based mash!

Sainsburys tend to try and match the weight, although their substitution choices are sometimes questionable. We just send back anything that doesn't work.

Hard agree - so many things have disappeared. I know they're focusing on profitability but it used to be fun shopping on Ocado and now it's just boring and there are fewer and fewer reasons to shop there instead of another supermarket.

Most recent favourite of mine I've seen go: Tunnocks! Their teacakes are clearly an essential item. . .

And the ASDA order summary makes it impossible to tell what you've actually paid.
They put a substitute and a note saying 'don't worry you still get your descount' or something but without getting a calculator out and adding up the whole order it's often impossible to tell what they've actually done.

eg I ordered 3 packs of 6 beers. They sent one pack and then 12 loose beers which were the same but as they were single bottles they were more expensive, even before the multibuy discount. The note said I still get my discount but as far as I could tell from adding things up, they meant that the one 6 pack I got was charged at the 3 for £20 rate, the single beers were still charged at £2 a bottle which is their standard price.

Right, but then that will put the cost up, meaning you pay for even more units at a higher unit price. You cannot expect them to substitute more of a higher value item surely, if that's what you mean?

Yup. I always did when I was an online shopper. We were encouraged to do so, even if it cost the shop money

They used to do that all the time. The idea is that the store absorbs the downside of it not having the original item in stock, rather than the customer being punished by having to pay more to get what they need.

Maybe they can no longer continue doing it?
Customers aren't being punished, just choose no substitutes if you don't want a different item.
Customers shopping instore cannot always get the exact item they want either.

I always presume they’ve tried their best to offer a fair substitute and if you don’t like it, just reject it. With Sainsbury’s we usually get a bigger or same weight but branded item as the sub, but a couple of times if our ordered item was on offer then then the sub works out as much less good.

I think it’s coded, rather than down to the picker, as an aside.

To keep the customer happy by providing good service.

They are not running a loss doing that, just foregoing a few pennies from the profit.

I just opted out of all substitutions. It did mean I had to go out and buy something myself at times, but saved getting stuff I didn't want or having to go through everything with the driver and waste his or her time.

Asda used to send all but one from a promotion so you lost out. Eg if it was 3 bottles of wine for £15 they'd sub one so I wouldn't get the deal. They would refund if I could be bothered to check receipt and contact them but it started happening every shop which was annoying.

Depends on the quality. I would expect a smaller corn fed, free range chicken for example to cost more than an indoor reared. Same for organic/no -organic, etc.

Just reject the substitutions you don't want. That way you don't pay anything.

Pickers can't pick something that it's there so they have to pick the next nearest thing to what you want.

The stores are always happy enough to take it back and refund. Never had any problems. Sometimes the drivers let you keep the item and still issue the refund anyway!

I can't say I have ever had that problem with Tesco. Eg. A 1l bottle of olive oil replaced with 2 500ml bottles. If the item they replace it with is a lower cost then you pay that, if the item they replace it with is more, you pay the price you paid when making the order.

Oh sure, I get that absolutely, and I actually said as much in an earlier post, that you need to think of it like shopping in-store, where it’s your choice to decide to buy another higher priced brand or leave without what you came for.

My point was simply that it’s not right to say you cannot expect the store to make a sub that gives the customer a windfall because, for a long time, lots of stores had a policy of doing exactly that, in order to incentivise people to shop online by making the sub process as favourable to them as possible.

I think Tesco must do it by weight as I had some cheese substituted with a similar one that weighed slightly less so they sent two.

Sainsbury's are really stingy with subs because you have to pay the price for the subs and they give you a voucher if they cost more. Swapped two grapefruits for one because it was 5p more etc.

I've not yet managed to figure out how Asda decide subs, it seems almost random at times. The process for refunds is great though.

Years ago now I order pull ups, size 5, what arrived as a sub were newborn sized nappies! Same shop load I ordered chicken breast (raw) and what came were frozen chicken nuggets . To add insult to injury they just didn't deliver the fresh fish I'd ordered at all (but had charged) that was the last time I ordered from that store

What does actually annoy me is sainsburys don’t refund the difference if something cheaper is substituted. It goes into “your account” and you get emailed a code to use on your next shop to get the money taken off. But it’s only valid for about 3 months.

I didn’t realise for a while so not sure how much money I lost. I’m not even sure if somethings unavailable if they refund you the money straight away or if you have to do the stupid thing of using the code next time.

Ok, found my last email about the money off thing. So sainsburys charge you more money if the substitution is more expensive. But you can then claim the difference back. Still not great as I’m sure previously they just didn’t use to charge the difference. It’s why I now tick don’t sub for everything.

As promised, we've checked the difference in price between the substituted item/s delivered in your recent online shop against the item/s you originally ordered and where the substitute/s were more expensive we've given you a money-off voucher for the difference.

You'll be able to find this voucher in your online voucher wallet, which can be used on any future online grocery order within the next 2 months. You simply tick this and it'll appear as money-off from your shop.

Voucher Amount: £2.05
Voucher Expiry Date: Tuesday, 26 September 2023

See you again soon,
Sainsbury's Online Team

I didn't used to mind the sainsbury's substitutions vouchers because I saved them for Christmas, but now they've changed the validity of them to only a couple of months it's more annoying. 😂

The customer service ones still last ages, but they seem to add more and more hoops to jump through to get to speak to someone.

Morrisons have the worst system. They charge you the full price of the substitutions. For example I ordered some cheap lamb for a stew, they substituted with a good quality lamb that was 4 times the price and charged me the extra. I was at work and DH accepted it. On that occasion I requested a refund and they gave me the whole lot for free.