Substitutions

 

Substitutions

My grocery order has just been delivered, and it had some substitutions, which were quite acceptable. The young man helpfully holding up the crate so that I could transfer the contents to a bag – I always regard it as a weight-training exercise, which gets easier as the items are removed – told me that most of the substitutions are usually quite reasonable. Sometimes, though, they beggar belief, and bear little or no relation to the requested item. For example, one customer had ordered bread, but it wasn’t available and it had been replaced with tomato ketchup. What was the thought sequence there? Bread for sandwiches for cheese for pickle for ketchup . . .

Questions then arise about the state of mind of the employee whose job it is to select items for a customer’s list. These staff members are variously called Online Pickers, Online Assistants, Retail Assistants, or Personal Shoppers.

Everyone has off-days or lapses in concentration and I can well imagine how strange or unusual substitutions can be made occasionally. Lemon bleach for lemons?

Online shopping

 

Online shopping

Yesterday, my food order arrived at the appointed hour but as we chatted while the driver unloaded the bags from the crates, I noticed large bottles of water in one of the bags. I pointed out that I hadn’t ordered them. The driver was most apologetic although it wasn’t his fault. Then I spotted another bag containing something else I hadn’t ordered. More apologies were forthcoming. Poor man – perhaps some customers are unreasonable and unpleasant when such things happen and he had borne the brunt of their displeasure in the past.

Unpacking the bags in the kitchen I discovered more things I had not ordered. As the delivery van had long departed I ‘phoned the supermarket help line. The young man checked that I hadn’t been charged for them, which struck me as illogical since I hadn’t ordered them in the first place. Then he said that I could keep the unordered items. There were five packs of Thai green curry, retail price £18.75 in total. I passed them on to my daughter who normally makes this curry from scratch but the packets will sit in her store cupboard ‘for a rainy day.’ The two boxes of Balsam tissues I kept. They were £5.00. So the supermarket was willing to allow me to keep goods to the value of £23.75. That’s very generous and presumably means their profit margins are healthy, as I'm sure I'm not the only customer in the country who receives unexpected groceries. I suppose it's more cost effective to 'write off' such items rather than sending someone to collect and redistribute  them!

I feel sorry for the person who will be missing these items in their shopping this week. I’m sure an apology will be forthcoming and perhaps a complimentary gift for the inconvenience.

Recently there were two frozen pizzas I had not ordered in a delivery. I spotted them as I was unpacking at the door – no bags from that supermarket – so the driver was able to take them back immediately. I joked at the time that I should have kept quiet about them.

 Online shopping is very convenient provided everything ordered is in stock. Occasionally there are really bizarre substitutions – lemon washing-up liquid instead of lemons, for example – but generally I am happier to have the shopping delivered than to trawl the shops for myself.