Would you wash your clothes with an Aero mint bar?

Elderly person Well done ??

6 white bread rolls became 4 white toilet rolls.

Not a substitution, but when I left bed in France, I had a supermarket loyalty card, and on my birthday, I had a 'present.'
I'd expected a voucher, but no. It was a bag of groceries - pasta, tinned tomatoes, bars of chocolate, packets of biscuits, pâté, tins of beans and a variety of cheeses. Useful and quite unexpected.
In the UK we use Ocado and as others have said, they don't do substitutes.

I got tenderloin instead of Tena Lady, my daughter laughed so much she needed the latter???

Summerfly

I ordered one box of mushrooms from Sainsbury’s, but received one mushroom with a price sticker attached. We saw the funny side, but how thick must some people be? ? ?

Not an error, but about a small quantity, years ago, in Safeway or maybe Morrisons by then, in the vegetable section I saw amongst all the big pieces of ginger a very small piece with a green shoot sprouting from it. So I very carefully put it in a produce bag and bought it, going through the checkout very carefully too, so as to try to grow it. It was 4p. Potted into seed compost, it grew.

I ordered one box of mushrooms from Sainsbury’s, but received one mushroom with a price sticker attached. We saw the funny side, but how thick must some people be? ? ?

I don’t wish to be smug but last year I ordered a special offer bottle of cheapish pink Prosecco from Waitrose for Easter to cheer myself up (early days of lockdown and I was going to be alone). Sadly they were out of pink Prosecco but sent a bottle of very acceptable rosé champagne as a sub! (I checked their website and it was about £37)
Not unhappy!

My friend received Cherry Blossom Air Freshener in place of cherries.

ayse

Algorithms may have a lot to answer for!

Er... the algorithms are devised by people.

Never had any problem with Waitrose substitutions, though one did surprise me when they substituted Calvados for Armagnac. Then I realised we had ordered Calvados a couple of weeks before, so they knew we drank it. But not that quickly!

Me and the hub crying laughing here tonight with some of your tales. We've had some very weird substitutions too but just can't remember them right now as I'm still tittering at some of what you've had delivered. Thank you all for making a not so good day today,fantastic xx

DD’s friend ordered limes and mint for Mojitos and got lemons and coriander instead ?

This last week my Iceland substitutes were as follows:
Real chicken strips instead of vegan fake chicken
Flora instead of dairy free spread
6 pints of milk instead of 3litres of soya milk
I asked driver to take them back but he said he has finished for the day and is taking the van home?
I got a refund and they refused it back so gave it to DD

I use Ocado, who are usually very good - my best substitute was the C'mas that I ordered three books of second class stamps and got three books of first class for the same price ?

Algorithms may have a lot to answer for!

I ordered 3 bags of ice cubes but they were substituted by 3 bags of frozen peas. Am now drinking my G&T's with a slice of lemon and a couple of peas! Does this count towards my five a day? Sainsburys software may need tweaking.

I ordered prawns and got mozarella cheese bites?!

Friend of mine got a delivery a few years back when ordering online had just started. For her peaches, she got peach shampoo.

We'd ordered from Ocado for a birthday party for GD. We'd also ordered a cake. Personalised. Got a message the morning of the party to inform us there was no cake.

DH had to dash off to look for a suitable cake. Ocado apologised. Gave us some birthday cup cakes. Couple of bottles of wine. All OK.

Delivery arrived with all our freebie apology treats.

Cake also arrived.

They told us to keep the treats. Thankfully. I'd already opened the wine .

That's interesting shoulddobetta and so sensible not to be guided by a handset! Can I have you as my picker from now on!

I have a part time second job with a large supermarket chain picking for the online shopping. The handset suggests an alternative but I often use my own judgement i.e. one instance there were no organic aubergines so handset suggested kale. I substituted with a regular aubergine!
As an aside, we are timed, as in we have to pick a required number of items per hour so little time to dilly dally.

Even more irritating is when items are removed from your order as not being available and you don't notice as I book my slot 4 weeks in advance
( Tesco) I will put some regular items in the basket, fruit, milk, bread and this might be removed because 2 weeks before it wasn't available but is again nearer the date. Also when ever I order a meal deal (£10 for a main , side, dessert and a bottle of wine) I never ever get everything I order they don't even attempt to put substitute in.

I use Asda and Tesco click and collect.

Tesco is the best by far, sensible substitutions, but nearly always have the correct products.

Asda, not so good. Usually a few subs each week, but they are a lot cheaper. I use both on alternate weeks.

You can always hand the substitutes back if not suitable.

Never had any strange substitutes though.

I used Sainsbury’s in the first lockdown ordered muscadet which is a very dry white wine which the substitution was Blue Nun a sweet white winURGH

Purplepoppies

I've been quite lucky with deliveries. One driver told me at the height of the first lockdown he delivered to a customer who had ordered strawberries. The replacement was cooked cocktail sausages ?? to make things worse the customer turned out to be a Tesco area manager....
There still seem to be certain things my Tesco don't have in stock anymore since the pandemic. Very frustrating.
Its also frustrating when something that's in my 'usual' shopping list says its no longer stocked when in fact they've just changed the packaging.
Or things I know they sell instore that aren't available to order online.
I am not confident to go to the supermarket yet, and the delivery fee is cheaper than the taxi fare home.

If it is available in store but not online a polite request to the customer helpline often resolves that.

Apparently as there are not enough slots for online as products in the store, an automated system wipes things off online if they are not as popular by some algorithm or other.

A polite representation often works and a manual readding takes place.

Also, I once found, years ago, that Alpro strawberry shakes were available at larger stores, but not at the local store, only the chocolate shake, I sent an email to customer services and the strawberry shake became available locally.

A good thing about Tesco substitutions is that the customer never pays more. In addition, that is on an item basis, not an order basis, so if there are two substitutions, one 10p more and one 10p less, one gets the dearer one with 10p off, but only pay the lower price for the other, they don't say, well the whole order only costs the same.

My brother once worked at a shopping catalogue firm. Silly substitutions were made on purpose. He told me of one that almost cost a colleague his job when a woman complained that she received two large earthenware pudding bowls instead of. 42 D cup bra.