When customers order their shopping online, the items and best before dates that are chosen are completely down to staff at the store – that also includes substitutions
A Sainsbury’s shopper was speechless when she realised what her 75p cabbage was substituted for. With people working more hours and having so much going in in their personal lives, many people find it easier to order a food shop online.
Although ordering online can be time consuming, it means you don’t have to spend time walking around a supermarket for an hour, and can also stop yourself from picking up treats as you walk up and down an aisle. But with home deliveries or click and collect options, there is the negative of somebody else doing your shopping and not picking the best dates or quality you would expect.
It is also left down to the store assistant to choose what to substitute an item for if the one being asked for is unavailable. This was true for one woman, who was completely speechless when she saw what her 75p cabbage was substituted for.
The woman posted on social media forum, Reddit, in the R/CasualUK community to explain exactly what happened.
She said: ” Congratulations Sainsbury’s for making possibly the most absurd substitution in my order that I have ever encountered: no cabbage? How about a bouquet of tulips.
“Honestly quite baffled to be honest. Substitutions happen all the time, granted, and I’d say 90% of the time the replacement is useable enough vs what you actually ordered… but tulips? As a substitution for a cabbage? I guess my garlic butter cabbage is going to look interesting tonight.
“Gotta admit, the tulips look lovely, and it gave me a good laugh first thing in the morning.”
Sainsbury’s offer a substitution promise, which states that they will always offer a “very carefully” chosen substitution that they believe is the most appropriate alternative to the product a customer has ordered.
Substitutions are always sent to the customer via a email, and a customer has the right to refuse an item on delivery. Any returned items will be refunded.
However, it was clear the shopper took the substitution humorously, and even encouraged other people to share their own in the comments.
One person said: “I had a friend order 4 oranges and got 4 massive bags of clementines, same person ordered a double bed sheet and got two singles.”
A second said: “I once ordered 6 individual pears from Tesco. They didn’t have those, so they sent me 6 packs of 6 pears instead. It was brilliant, I was eating pears in everything.”
A third said: “My friend ordered tampons from Tesco…..and got a pack of sausages. Not sure how absorbent sausages actually are – I did ask my friend but she just laughed at me.”
A fourth added: “Many years ago, I ordered two bags of lemons. Asda sent me two bottles of ‘lemon’ washing up liquid instead. Yummy!”
