Online grocery order had a like-for-like product substitution, but the substitution was from a producer that uses a slightly different set of ingredients, one of which I have an intolerance of. Sending it back garnered a refund… and might have helped train an algorithm somewhere.
That is, if they have some kind of semi-random procedure to choose which customer gets a substitution, someone else who’d be more likely to accept it might get it instead, and I’ll get the product I can eat.
I think those substitutions are picked by the person filling your order. We got a hilarious substitution from Walmart once. My wife ordered a bottle of thyme or oregano or something similar. They were out of stock so the worker went to the garden center and substituted it with a fucking potted plant of thyme or oregano. We both laughed our asses off at their choice but it wasn’t what we needed.
The place I use allegedly uses robots to pick the orders, so, in theory anyway, it’s a machine making the decisions. Or someone sat in front of one, rather than on the warehouse floor.
Online grocery order had a like-for-like product substitution, but the substitution was from a producer that uses a slightly different set of ingredients, one of which I have an intolerance of. Sending it back garnered a refund… and might have helped train an algorithm somewhere.
That is, if they have some kind of semi-random procedure to choose which customer gets a substitution, someone else who’d be more likely to accept it might get it instead, and I’ll get the product I can eat.
I think those substitutions are picked by the person filling your order. We got a hilarious substitution from Walmart once. My wife ordered a bottle of thyme or oregano or something similar. They were out of stock so the worker went to the garden center and substituted it with a fucking potted plant of thyme or oregano. We both laughed our asses off at their choice but it wasn’t what we needed.
The place I use allegedly uses robots to pick the orders, so, in theory anyway, it’s a machine making the decisions. Or someone sat in front of one, rather than on the warehouse floor.
My grocery store ways texts a photo of what’s available and I tell them what will work.