BEFORE YOU GO
RETAIL RANDOMS
Swap flops It looks like the ongoing supply chain problems that are causing empty shelves are now starting to bleed into supermarkets’ home delivery services. A new survey from consumer group Which? has found that almost two-infive (39%) shoppers were given a substitution in their most recent home delivery. It also appears that the supermarkets are getting increasingly desperate when it comes to deciding what constitutes a reasonable swap. Aldi topped the list for substitutions, with just under half (49%) of respondents saying they’d been given an alternative product. The majority of these were probably fine. However, pity the poor customer who asked for breaded fish fillets but was given a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream instead. It gets better. A bright spark at Sainsbury’s thought a Victoria sponge was a suitable replacement for sponge scourers.
That’s someone who’s never used cake to clean a pot before. The list goes on and could easily fill a page. It runs the gamut from hen’s eggs
for Creme Eggs to sausage rolls for toilet rolls, and all the mults are guilty. If it’s any consolation for the Aldi shopper, ice cream and chips is delicious.
IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS Valentine’s Day has mercifully come
sonable indicator that Cupid was
and gone for another year and new
keeping busy.
data from PayPoint suggests that
The bad news is that Valentine’s
romance isn’t dead. Although it may
Day itself saw a total of 55,875 par-
need a defibrillator.
cel returns, a 158% increase on the
Apparently a whopping 74,080 parcels were picked up from Col-
previous Monday, 7 February, which saw a paltry 21,630 take-backs.
lect+ stores between 11 and 14 Feb-
Oh well. As Nick Williams, Head
ruary. One can only imagine what
of Strategic Partners & Product, Par-
they contained, and if batteries were
cels at PayPoint, gallantly pointed
included. However, it’s a fairly rea-
out: “It’s the thought that counts.”
WEDNESDAY 23RD FEBRUARY 2022 / ISSUE 93 / SLRMAG.CO.UK I 35
