Tesco Grocery Delivery Substitutions

annimooboo

I once had Tesco substitute an emery board (nail file) for nail varnish remover.

I was quite impressed with the (male) driver though who was apologising before he even showed me the substitute!

vyle

The only head scratcher I ever had from tesco was I wanted 10w halogen bayonet lightbulbs. They sent screw-in energy saving bulbs and couldn't quite understand why I wasn't satisfied

bluestarlight

I ordered a packet of watercress salad, and ended up with a tiny grow your own cress pot instead.

luxor4t

I ordered a big tub of cooking margerine and the substitute was a small pack of lard! The drivers was apologising for the picker before I'd read it!

smileypigface

Having a giggle at some of the Tesco subs on here - best one I've heard is the order for a plug in car de-humidifier - the pick gadget suggested a suitable substitute would be a ...... tow rope!! Just goes to show that it's important that the picker has their brain in gear and doesn't just do what the gadget tells them!!

What some people might not realise, from reading a couple of the posts on here, is that your whole order might not necessarily be picked by the same person. The order is picked by area of the store (ie, chilled, frozen, ambient and produce) - so a picker will have a trolley of 6 trays of frozen, for example, and they could be for 6 different customers. So, if you have ordered the 'makings' of a meal it might not be obvious to the picker if, for example, the fresh yogurt is the only chilled ingredient - they won't know it's for an Indian feast and not your breakfast.

I think you can tell when the picker has no experience of actually shopping for a family themselves - at Christmas I ordered 3 x 500 ml tubs of finest ready made turkey gravy - the sub was 3 x large tubs of turkey gravy granules .... how many gallons of turkey gravy could I make from 3 tubs of granules!! I also ordered a jar of raaita (not sure of spelling there - it's the yogurty dippy thing to go with a curry) - it was subbed with a pack of naan bread!!!

I don't understand why some people specify no subs though - quite often there might not be a pack of 4 of something on the shelf - but it could have been subbed with 2 packs of 2 - but if the customer has said no subs the gadget won't let you put a sub in.

And just so you know, a picker's favourite customer is the one who doesn't want bags and orders multiples of everything - gets the picking stats up a treat!!

transient

ordered goose fat for the roast potatoes for sunday dinner and got bernaise sauce???

Pippin12

I buy a lot of 'everyday value' items from Tesco and when they're out of stock they always replace them with more expensive items that they then price match. They don't always get it right - but usually I'm quite pleased.

rubyrose

I've had a couple of good subs and some odd ones. The driver was very confused why we got Gu chocolate orange puddings instead of plain tofu and in a different delivery we got paprika instead of smoked paprika.

On the whole they've been ok, Sainsburys are always lovely people and have a laugh at the weird sub while they're putting the refund through on the machine and the money appears in my account within 2 days.

coldcazzie

Baggieboy wrote: »

I believe I identified some very suspicious behaviour regarding subs from Tesco's once. We found that we were having very basic items (basic bacon etc) replaced by luxury items (best, most expennsive bacon) and basic prawns replaced by best king prawns. We refused them and waited for the refund. Wasn't forthcoming. Challenged the store and according to their records there had been no replacement. Their copy of the delivery note had the original items delivered as normal. Had to send our copy of the delivery sheet (fortunately retained) and a refund eventually came through - and the feeling was it was very begrudgingly. Would have had no chance if we hadn't kept our delivery note, and where did those king prawns end up I wonder. Anyway, best replace I ever heard was salmon fillets (for a dinner party) replaced by salmon fishfingers.

Never had many problems since switching to Ocado.

I've also had things in the delivery be different to what I ordered but not be down as a sub. So far it's only been things like 3 500g boxes of corn flakes instead of 2 750g boxes, but it is a touch concerning. I also regularly have things go missing off the order. They're on my original order when I place it, but not on the delivery sheet that I get, and when I go back to check my order details online they've vanished from there too.

I usually specify what subs I'm content with - eg, equal number of individual Apple juice cartons if multipacks not available. I've removed most of the bizarre subs that way.

andrew-the-cat

I think you have to take peoples stories of subs with a pinch of salt. Personally I have never seen any outrageous ones like a Twix bar for Tampax. In fact I haven't ever seen any which really don't make sense, but unless the website starts asking the customer to specify alternatives for EVERY item they order in case they are out of stock, you will never keep anyone happy. If a customer orders a 6 pack of Walkers cheese and onion crisps, but it is out of stock, do you:

substitute it for a 12 pack of Walkers cheese and onion crisps, knowing that it will likely cost them at least 70% more and they will not be refunded the difference;

substitute it for a 6 pack of Walkers salt and vinegar crisps, knowing they will be pleased that they are not paying any extra but now have the wrong flavour;

substitute it for a 6 pack of the supermarkets own brand cheese and onion crisps, knowing that the customer will be happy that they are most likely paying LESS for the item, still have the correct flavour but do not have the premium brand of crisps they specifically ordered?

You can never win, although in my experience, about 90% of substitutions that I deliver are accepted.

I think the worst sub I have ever personally seen was one where 5x 1KG bags of sugar were subbed for a 5KG bag of sugar. The customer was a business (an office), and although they ended up paying twice as much for the sugar as they wanted, they accepted it because they needed their tea!

As for the people doing the subbing, they use handsets which directs them to the product they need to pick, if it is out of stock then they can choose whether to sub it (unless the customer requests no subs), if they do then it will suggest alternatives IN THE SAME SUPER-CATEGORY only so it would not substitute a frozen read meal product for cat food, even if the names were similar. These subs are not forced and the picker does not have to follow it, they can select their own sub or select no suitable alternative (for something like gluten free pizza bases, where there is only 1 type). They would not arrive at the whipped cream shelf, find it out of stock and then walk across the entire store to pick a bottle of Calpol as a substitution. People just are not that stupid!

At the end of the day it's one of the cons of online food shopping...but you don't have to accept the substitution and it is ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM if the customer does not want it, I never try to persuade them otherwise or even ask why, it is my job to return any subs they do not want. Since our store is all digital now with the deliveries, I scan the barcode of the sub, enter the quantity if needed, then once I get back to the store the data is downloaded from the handset automatically and all of the refunds are processed by a computer. There is no human intervention with the refunds, it is all completely automated.