Online shopping enigma
Monday, 17th September 2007 by JulieHaving carefully ticked the box marked “No substitutes” before checking out at the end of my ASDA online shopping experience, this was what happened at the time of delivery:
Three items were not available.
1. Tin of custard powder
Substituted with: Packet of instant (just add water) custard.
Reaction: Rejected. Ick! Whoever chose this clearly does not make their own custard and does not understand that anyone who actually cares enough to make real custard, does not want to be stuck with the just-add-water variety!
2. Oat and sultana biscuits
Substituted with: Chocolate chip cookies
Reaction: Rejected. Having trawled through their list of 40-something different varieties of biscuits, I had carefully chosen ones that (a) looked healthy and (b) excluded chocolate. (Does that sound tautologous?
) Omitting this substitution would have been a safer bet.
3. 2 x 250g bricks of Willow butter
Substituted with: Nothing. Finding something similar on this one (only 5 other brands of butter to choose from!) apparently had them completely stumped!
Reaction: Huh?!
On the positive side:
- The driver was friendly and prepared to wait while I went through all the bags to check that nothing was damaged.
- Nothing was damaged.
- The driver had all the paperwork with him.
- Delivery was free as part of a special offer.
- I didn’t have to go to the shops and carry it all home.
And the first four are a lot more than could be said for the Tesco lot!
(If you’re wondering, the driver does take all the rejected items away with him and we get a refund.)

September 20th, 2007 at 11:57 am
Hi Julie,
I’m surprised you did not keep the business in the family. Have you forgotten Eddie works for Ocado, apparently the leader in internet grocery shopping, and with no substitutions. Give them a shot next time and I look forward to reading about your experience with them.
Love……..James
September 20th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Ah yes, I hadn’t forgotten cousin Ed.
And Ocado certainly do promise great things re delivery times and to your kitchen etc. But sadly they don’t fully cater for the cheap & cheerful type shopping that I do (for the items I don’t care about)
, and delivery costs aren’t cheap enough to shop both places or I definitely would use them.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:27 am
You rejected the choc chip cookies ?!? *gasp*