Ship of Fools: Substitutions

Thread: Substitutions Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by St. Gwladys (# 14504) on :

We do our weekly shop at T***O's and if an item isn't in stock, we get a substitution. Mosly, it's something which is a close match, but this week's was completely illogical - I asked for a tub of baking powder, what I got was a cake presentation board!
Has anyone else had odd substitutions which don't make any sense?

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

I hope they let you return things,

Posted by Chocoholic (# 4655) on :

The other thing is the Amazon suggestions. I've just looked at mine, it suggested a pair of slippers as I had bought a chick flick book.

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :

Amazon have just suggested to me that I might like to buy 24 bottles of sparkling water because I previously bought a box of sugar lumps.

I also recently ordered two different sized packs of the same toilet paper from Asda (I know that seems strange, but I was actually trying to thwart their bizarre substitution system). One size, as expected, wasn't available. They replaced it with a different size of a different brand rather than sending me two of the one I'd ordered that was in stock.

As far as I can tell with Asda a substitution has to be dearer than the ordered item (you then pay the price of the thing you ordered). That means they will never send you a smaller size of the thing you ordered.

Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :

How bizarre! It must be easier and more economical for them to handle the returns from disappointed customers than to pick up a phone or send an email and say, "Sorry, that's not in stock..."? Then again, this is a system I'm not familiar with at all. I've never ordered groceries (incl. general merchandise) for delivery.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

It's computerized. A human being would (hopefully) have the sense to send you two of what you asked for, or to inquire if there was nothing sensible to use as a substitute. A computer will just run down an algorithm until it finds something that fits, and never mind it making sense.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
It's computerized. A human being would (hopefully) have the sense to send you two of what you asked for, or to inquire if there was nothing sensible to use as a substitute. A computer will just run down an algorithm until it finds something that fits, and never mind it making sense.

Algorithms don't come out of the ether. There is a human being (or two. Or two hundred) behind it somewhere and I've no doubt that they can be tuned by the stores. They do however take account of what is in stock which results in goods that won't move otherwise being offloaded.

[ 01. August 2015, 22:04: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

True. But I suspect in the case of the sugar cubes what happened was something like

[search for items closely related to sugar cubes, If nothing, then]

[search for items related to tea. If nothing, then]

[search for items related to drinking. Bingo!]

Along with the usual weighting in favor of items that need clearing, items that are just a bit more expensive, etc. etc. etc.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Sorry, but whe you said you "did you weekly shop" I expected this to mean you actually went to the shop and pushed around a trolley.

As for the crazy substitution, you may or may not be dealing with a computer choice: I've seen staff at my local store hunting for things when putting together an on-line ordered list and, being unable to find what was requested, have taken the next thing on the shelf.

As far as I'm concerned, this is yet another reason not to use the 'click-and-collect' or online ordering services.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

I ordered a box of 10 stock cubes, and got 10 boxes of stock cubes. They let me keep the extra 9 boxes for free. The mistake was made by whoever was picking the things off the shelves.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I ordered a box of 10 stock cubes, and got 10 boxes of stock cubes. They let me keep the extra 9 boxes for free. The mistake was made by whoever was picking the things off the shelves.

So now you have a stock of stock.
[Biased]

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

I wonder if any supermarket does particularly badly at this?

A friend ordered a tablet (as in a mini laptop type tablet) and received...a toaster. It was indeed ordered from Tesco so they aren't doing very well so far...

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

We use Waitrose and haven't had any outlandish substitutions. The most divergence we've had was beef meatballs for pork meatballs; they let us send that back. (They say that if they substitute they charge for the cheaper item whichever way round it is.)

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

quote:
A friend ordered a tablet (as in a mini laptop type tablet) and received...a toaster.

Let's play LC's game - guess the code:

[If _tablet_ = 0 then
while initial letter = 't'
search {electro_goods}]

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

The substitution game is why I have never ordered my shopping online. When it would have been convenient, when my daughter was sick, we worked out she is food allergic (dairy, wheat, shellfish, chocolate, nuts, pineapple) and spent hours reading food labels to avoid ingredients. Approximations weren't ever going to cut it, even if they were reasonably close, because I needed that specific product.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I order shopping online for my elderly mother who is housebound. There have been substitutions but they are sometimes better quality than the "value" or "everyday" items (which are less expensive), so it can mean an unexpected bonus for a pensioner who then gets items they wouldn't normally be able to fit into the budget. It seems to work well so far.

Posted by PilgrimVagrant (# 18442) on :

I've discovered that Asda tends to be out of small whole roasting chickens if you order for delivery on a Sunday. Instead you get a _huge_ bag of frozen chicken breasts, quite enough to last one person a week.

Cheers, PV.

Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
We use Waitrose and haven't had any outlandish substitutions. The most divergence we've had was beef meatballs for pork meatballs; they let us send that back. (They say that if they substitute they charge for the cheaper item whichever way round it is.)

Substitutions down here are charged at cheaper price. I am fussy and allow substitutes only on certain items. If I want a particular brand, I do not check substitution box and take my chances.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

I get many of my groceries delivered. I order online, and I can specify what to do about substitutions for each item. IIRC, the choices are "Same brand, different size", "Different brand, same size", and "No substitutions". Plus there's a comment field along with that, so I can specify "unscented", "low fat", or whatever.

They've usually done a good job. Someone substituted almond milk for soy milk, and I much prefer soy. It might have been because the packaging was similar. I have something like 72 hours after delivery to notify the store of any mistakes. If I don't, then I'm stuck with whatever it is. On that occasion, I didn't catch the mistake in time.

ETA: While I'm ordering, I can also pull up product info and read the ingredients.

[ 02. August 2015, 13:18: Message edited by: Golden Key ]

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

quote:
I've discovered that Asda tends to be out of small whole roasting chickens if you order for delivery on a Sunday. Instead you get a _huge_ bag of frozen chicken breasts, quite enough to last one person a week.

Now you're talking [Big Grin]

If a few people on here catch on to that, your chances get better - but if a few more try it, they'll up the stock and you're stuffed. Hmm...

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
The substitution game is why I have never ordered my shopping online. When it would have been convenient, when my daughter was sick, we worked out she is food allergic (dairy, wheat, shellfish, chocolate, nuts, pineapple) and spent hours reading food labels to avoid ingredients. Approximations weren't ever going to cut it, even if they were reasonably close, because I needed that specific product.

You can always choose not to have any substitutions - although of course that means you won't get anything when an item is out of stock.

It amazes me how much the stores vary in their systems. In the dim and distant past before we started boycotting Tesco I seem to remember that you had a box to tick for every item. Golden Key's store offers an all-singing, all-dancing system. Asda (my only option) is a straight yes or no to substitutions for the whole order (although anything you don't like can be returned with the driver, or, I think, within a certain timescale).

Posted by Signaller (# 17495) on :

Tales of weird substitutions were common when online grocery shopping was new. Nowadays they seem to be generally much better. Far from putting people off, I can't understand why anyone actually goes to the stores any more- it used to be such a complete waste of a Saturday morning, just to get the same stuff every week. Ordering online makes it civilized again, almost like the grocery deliveries of fifty years ago (but easier to choose what you want).

We have used Sainsbury's online service every week for more than ten years, and substitutions are very rare. I haven't disagreed with the choice of one for a long time, and it's clear that when it does happen the subsitutes are chosen by the people who pick the order, not dictated by computer.

Not that the order pickers are perfect- we regularly used to get 4 apples when we had ordered 4 kg, which was annoying. That recurred a lot, and took a letter to the CEO to get properly sorted out, but it was some time ago.

Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on :

In my weekly delivered local fresh fruit and veggie box they were out of blueberries, so they substituted okra. One of a very few things that I can not stand to eat. [Projectile]

I am sure they had plenty of un-ordered okra laying around, but I would have thought some other fruit would have been the replacement.

Posted by Rowen (# 1194) on :

Luxury!
Where I come from, no delivery..... I live too far away from the known world.
And yet, we DO have electricity out here!

It's just my town is too far from the major grocery chains, and the little shop in town doesn't do it.

Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on :

Rowan, I should explain delivery is not from grocery store, but a co-op I sign up for each year made up of local farmers. You sign up agree to buy a box each week and for a small extra fee they will bring it to your door rather then you driving to a pick up spot. That way small farmers have promise of customers for their crop and you get weekly just picked fruits and veggies.

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :

quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I ordered a box of 10 stock cubes, and got 10 boxes of stock cubes. They let me keep the extra 9 boxes for free. The mistake was made by whoever was picking the things off the shelves.

Once, as part of a huge online shop for a Christmas dinner, I managed to get sent 3kg of courgettes instead of 3 courgettes… and also one single chestnut instead of 1kg of chestnuts!

To this day I don't know if the mistake was mine or theirs… but surely they thought something odd when weighing and bagging my single solitary chestnut!

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rowen:
Luxury!
Where I come from, no delivery..... I live too far away from the known world.
And yet, we DO have electricity out here!

It's just my town is too far from the major grocery chains, and the little shop in town doesn't do it.

We're 4 hours by ferry from our nearest Tesco, but for a modest fee our local courier will collect orders and bring them over. It does make duff substitutions a bit of a problem, however.

On the other hand, you can tell Tesco precisely how to handle your substitutions, which items you don't want substitutions for and limit the range of substitutions for others. So, for example, I ordered lots of tubs of vitalite because I have friends who can't have dairy so I use it for baking. I specified dairy free only on the substitutions so they substituted Pure when they didn't have any, which was fine with me. Just spend a little time with the substitutions list and you can avoid the worst of the problems.

Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on :

Rowen lives in Victoria, thousands of kms from Tescos and hundreds of kms from pretty well any other chain in Australia. She like many others there, drives a huge 4WD because to the conditions.
Spending time with the substitutions list as you suggest, will get her nowhere at all.

[ 23. August 2015, 07:03: Message edited by: Lothlorien ]

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :

Amazon has just suggested to me that I might like to buy a five pack of emergency waterproof ponchos, because I recently bought a water-firing radio controlled helicopter (for my nephew).

[Big Grin]

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