NEVER purchase gifts from Woolies Online as you will only be left in the lurch with NOTHING but embarrassment!!

Ordered a gift hamper from Woolies online to the value of 2k which was to be delivered to Pretoria at 5pm today, in time for my daughter's surprise birthday gift. At checkout yesterday morning, the stock I requested was available, hence proceeding with the payment. Before checking out, I called Customer Care and spoke to Shannon Van Rooi concerning a few other additional items which had been sold out online, requesting that those are located from other stores, then added to my order... Shannon advised that this could be done and the payment amount amended. She reverted to me shortly after, confirming the store which had some of the items I requested, undertaking to call me today, to confirm if the items had been successfully included in my order. By 13:30 today, I had not heard a word from Woolies, so decided to call them and spoke to Vuyo Rongwana, who requested the Centurion branch to contact me. Only AFTER 15:00 (at the last minute, since at that time, the delivery should have already been enroute from Centurion to Pretoria North for delivery) but only THAT late, did I receive a call from Prudence, who told me that practically half of the items which I had initially checked out were NOT available and she then proceeded to offer me substitutes at DOUBLE the price of the original items ordered, which angered me as I felt that since I had taken the time to follow up with calls since yesterday & had made it clear that this was a BIRTHDAY GIFT, they had ample time to adress issues timeously, but now expected me to be placed under duress/pressure to accept last minute purchases which would cost me DOUBLE! I requested that she ask her manager to call me back as she was not very articulate & I struggled to communicate with her. Jabu then called me at around 15:20 & was very blasé about my query, basically saying that he couldn't do anything about it as he didn't have enough time. I told him that he had ample time since yesterday morning when my order was placed, especially since I had made a few calls to follow up, meaning that Shannon at Customer Care had personally called and emailed them regarding this gift order. I told him that other online stores like Takealot.com do NOT check out customer orders unless they HAVE the stock available, then IMMEDIATELY ALLOCATE that stock to the purchaser ONCE PAID FOR & that I felt it was useless ordering gifts from Woolies online since they prove to be unreliable & evidently let customers down so easily. Due to his attitude, I asked him to have his senior call me instead and he said that same would be done in 5 minutes. However, I heard NOTHING at all from that point, so "I" called back just before 5pm (in a panic, realizing that there was no interest, or movement concerning my order & that clearly my daughter would NOT receive her delivery today) & I was told by Jabu that he couldn't assist me. I said, "so basically, my daughter will NOT receive her birthday gift today & Woolies has just left me in the lurch terribly" so I don't see what's 0the point of even ordering (especially gifts) from Woolies online... Again, I had to tolerate Jabu justifying their inefficiency, although trying to make him understand that they could have called me EARLIER in the day, as apposed to the last minute. So here I am, disgruntled as hell, as there was NO birthday gift delivered to my daughter today. It has been an absolute nightmare doing business with Woolies online. For someone who does ALL my shopping at Woolies as a walk in customer and now having decided that since I am in Durban and my daughter an intern doctor in Pretoria, it would be a brilliant idea to send her gifts this way and to ever so often surprise her with Woolies packages delivered to her door (as so convenient, saving her time & effort) I now DON'T even EVER wish to actually deal with Woolies any longer... NOT after being so badly let down. While I understand everything pertaining to availability of stock, this was handled terribly to begin with! Then still, a lack of empathy relating to what matters to the consumer! As loyal patrons, what is important to us, should "seemingly" matter to Woolies, even if not and we are being patronized! I have been extremely annoyed today and extremely let down!!! I have noted the INEFFICIENCY in which their online orders are dealt with. It took me almost a week to be able to check out my basket, since constantly waiting for certain items to become available online and then when I finally do so, STILL, I am DISAPPOINTED at the 11th hour, by items NOT having been reserved for my order once paid for as well as not receiving any feedback at all (even concerning additional items requested) leaving ME to continually call. My heart is so heavy about this as I could not wait for my daughter to receive her gift today and to call me after receiving her wonderful surprise. I feel as though Woolies has ruined her birthday, as she is WITHOUT a gift right now, which annoys me. I spoke to Gershon at Customer Care a short while ago and he seemed to be the only helpful person whom one could liaise with. Just utterly disgusted with Woolies right now. One's birthday can only be celebrated once in a year! Mxm.