The Unofficial Sainsbury's Thread

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WillPS
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They've been fiddling with this for a while. I'm not sure I get it - barcode scanning on a phone is fiddly. Far better to have a proper handset with hardware designed for the task.
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Pete
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WillPS wrote: Sun 02 Sep, 2018 00.53 They've been fiddling with this for a while. I'm not sure I get it - barcode scanning on a phone is fiddly. Far better to have a proper handset with hardware designed for the task.
It prevents you from talking on your phone for starters.

I suppose it is more suited to smaller stores. A Tesco Extra will have floorspace to spare, especially near the start of the store, so it's not a problem to add banks of extra checkouts and big charging bays but in the Tesco at Westminster that's literally one asile?

[there was two extra paragraphs here, but i realised i should have posted them in the official tesco thread]
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all new Phil
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I’m torn where to put this, as it follows on from your comments in the Tesco thread about customer service desks, but it’s about Sainos.

Anyway, there seem to have been a number of cost-saving measures in Sainsbury’s these past few months, the biggest being a restructure of store management. They also appear to be closing a lot of customer service desks, leading to scenes such as checkouts being used as dumping grounds for returns etc.

To be seeking to save what probably adds up to 30-40k to man a desk in a store that turns over millions suggests that margins must be incredibly tight right now.
Andrew
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Yes various Sainsburys near me (and ones I encountered whilst on holiday) have done away with the Customer Service Desk, with the first basket till now being sign posted as customer services.

Seems quite odd to do it that way, rather than moving customer services to the cig kiosk instead which would seem more logical.
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Pete
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It moved to the cigarette kiosk in Dundee although that coincided with a major refit
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Martin Phillp
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Forest Hill - CS merged with the kiosk.
Dulwich - Still has a dedicated CS area, which is next to the Bureau de Change counter.
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all new Phil
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MarkAshley wrote: Sun 02 Sep, 2018 15.09 Like you say I am torn where to put this as it applies to both Mr T and J Sainsy.

I have noticed a significant drop in stock levels in my local T Extra - non-food in particular. 4-shelf gondolas have become 3; overstock shelves have come down.
TVs are now all boxed with none on display showing Tesco TV etc.
The F+F and electricals desks have gone (along with the Click & Collect desk, but for different reasons)
The Customer Services/Lottery/Fags kiosks that once held 3 staff members now only ever has 1 very overworked minion trying to deal with returns, hidden cigarette shelves and external phone calls (double ring as opposed to single - once these were routed by Staff Reception - nowadays they seem to be coming straight in to the desk.

24 hour opening has been stripped back, whilst the mezzanine floors are now closed overnight in the stores that kept their all night hours. Tesco spent millions fifteen years ago installing mezzanines in its super stores; in 2018 they don't have the stock to keep these massive shop floors filled.

--

Back on thread with Sainsbury's: as you say, they are set on a mission of closing Customer Service desks and, in the case of my closest hyper-style store, replacing it with a coffee kiosk.
@dresserman retweeted my comment some six months ago citing that considering @Waitrose gives its coffee out gratis, this was rather an irksome decision by @sainsburys.

As you say, the end checkout has now become the dead stock dumping ground and the whole customer experience seems to have been forgotten in favour of clawing back as many pennies as possible from the staff pay cheques.

--

All in all this seems to be a worrying time for the sector - personally I think there are still too many brands trying to do roughly the same thing, but fundamentally forgetting who their core customer is in the process. Morrisons seems to be focused on Fresh; ASDA on "aren't we cheap?"; Sainsbury's on "aren't we cheaper than you thought?"; Tesco still on all things to all men, but not quite knowing who that man is; Waitrose on "complimentary coffee, newspaper and handjob".

All the while Lidl and Aldi are snapping at the heels of price and convenience having fairly small, simple store layouts with a "load-and-go" attitude.
I need to start shopping at Waitrose.
all new Phil
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MarkAshley wrote: Mon 03 Sep, 2018 00.10
all new Phil wrote: Sun 02 Sep, 2018 21.45 I need to start shopping at Waitrose.
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woolly
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Pete wrote: Sun 02 Sep, 2018 19.59 It moved to the cigarette kiosk in Dundee although that coincided with a major refit
This seems to be the trend I've noticed.

My old store had a refit, where the once stand alone desk was merged with the Kiosk. 2 newer stores in my area both opened with the combined desks.

Things really aren't as they used to be. Things were getting tighter before I left last April, but I keep hearing of more cuts and redundancies since leaving.
thegeek
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Pete wrote: Sun 02 Sep, 2018 19.59 It moved to the cigarette kiosk in Dundee although that coincided with a major refit
That's been the case for ages at our (smaller) Tesco superstore and non-hypermarket Asda. It does mean quite a queue at the latter, as staff occasionally have to disappear to find larger George.com orders from a stock room elsewhere.
gottago
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I went back to what used to be my regular Sainsburys in Balham last week for the first time in ages and found they'd added a full service Ben and Jerry's counter right next to the entrance (no one was using it) and had replaced their pizza counter with a Zizzi's pizza takeaway counter, complete with a large wood oven and restaurant prices. Haven't seen this before and the only person using it was a Deliveroo driver so presumably they're trying to cash in on that market. Presumably they're using this store as a trial, they've also now got the increasingly standard (in London) practice of having a fancy sushi counter run by some external company.

Also their regular hot food counter now has its own till meaning you don't have to queue if that's all you want.
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