The Tesco & other non-Morrisons supermarket thread

[g67bbx]

Circa 4500 jobs to go in Metro formats as part of simplification (my guess many will turn into express)

Also 134 Express stores to have their opening hours cut.

Stock routines to be simplified as well (less products in shop warehouses)

As usual press informed before staff.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -jobs.html

[Martin Phillp]

The Tesco Metro in Goodge Street, London is probably one of the first to be where Tesco wan't Metro to be in the future.

As you walk in, they have a food counter for Fitzrovia's office workers to create their own meals, with the sandwiches in the same area, there is stock largely left out on the shop floor instead of in the stock room and there are no standard checkouts. Instead there are a large bank of self-checkouts with other customers having to use the kiosk instead.

I'd debate that it's in line with the 70% of their customers who are coming in to spend the minimum, such as the £3 meal deal rather than coming in to do a small daily shop.

Down the road, Sainsbury's converted their large Central to a local and got rid of normal tills for the kiosk/self checkout model.

[all new Phil]

Some vox pops on the news yesterday about this criticising all these self service tills and I hate pressing buttons myself waah waah waah.

Why are people so emotionally attached to the idea of someone sitting there scanning all their shopping when they could just as easily do it themselves? I just don’t understand this expectation.

Worse is shops who still don’t have *any* self service checkouts. The M&S Food Hall near me has none, and neither does the nearby Sainsbury’s Local (despite only being a few years old). Fair enough, the area is full of old people who would be up in arms, but at least cater for those of us who don’t want to queue behind old people faffing with their bags and chatting about the weather by giving us that option to be out in a quarter of the time.

[IrvinHes]

Do you think this is just another example of a vocal minority complaining?

[Whataday]

In my local Tesco Metro the tills are so clustered together it's often difficult to see from the queue when one becomes available unless you're really trying hard to see (which of course most people don't). I'm amazed they don't number each till and have an automated call out system rather than having to wait for an assistant to finish helping Gladys, to shout "next please" and gesture at an empty till.

There are two things which drive me mad about Tesco Metro and Express stores:

1. Lack of carrier bags at each till. The amount of times I've had to leave my shopping unattended to go and find someone to get a bag, and then when I return someone's standing at my till about to move my items to one side. I know you might say "well bring your own and help the environment", and whenever I leave my apartment specifically to shop at my local store I do. But I shouldn't feel inconvenienced when I decide to pop in while passing to pick up some items.

2. Location of baskets. Why (oh why oh why...) do they only place baskets right at the front door? Surely the very business model of these 'convenience stores' is to lure in customers that want to quickly grab bread and milk and then get them to buy more items. Should this happen, that customer has to struggle with their arms full of stuff they don't really need all the way to the entrance to drop them in a basket. It has never made sense to me.

[Pete]

2. Location of baskets. Why (oh why oh why...) do they only place baskets right at the front door? Surely the very business model of these 'convenience stores' is to lure in customers that want to quickly grab bread and milk and then get them to buy more items. Should this happen, that customer has to struggle with their arms full of stuff they don't really need all the way to the entrance to drop them in a basket. It has never made sense to me.

yes! that's one thing B&Q get right. they put baskets by the doors but also by key products such as decorating sundies and nails/screws.

[WillPS]

1. Lack of carrier bags at each till. The amount of times I've had to leave my shopping unattended to go and find someone to get a bag, and then when I return someone's standing at my till about to move my items to one side. I know you might say "well bring your own and help the environment", and whenever I leave my apartment specifically to shop at my local store I do. But I shouldn't feel inconvenienced when I decide to pop in while passing to pick up some items.

JS seem to have them in a box beneath the tray where your basket is supposed to rest. I'm guessing people robbing bags is the reason the others are less keen.

Location of baskets. Why (oh why oh why...) do they only place baskets right at the front door? Surely the very business model of these 'convenience stores' is to lure in customers that want to quickly grab bread and milk and then get them to buy more items. Should this happen, that customer has to struggle with their arms full of stuff they don't really need all the way to the entrance to drop them in a basket. It has never made sense to me.

Because they would take up space and would complicate the process of getting baskets away from the tills (something a lot of shops seem to struggle with as it is).

[Whataday]

There doesn't seem to be any consistency when it comes to carrier bags on tills at Tesco Express stores in particular. Some days they're on a hook behind the tills so you have to ask for them and other days they're on the tills.

It's not difficult to circulate baskets from a handful of tills to at least one other location than the entrance. These stores should be run for the convenience of customers, not staff.

[WillPS]

There doesn't seem to be any consistency when it comes to carrier bags on tills at Tesco Express stores in particular. Some days they're on a hook behind the tills so you have to ask for them and other days they're on the tills.

It's not difficult to circulate baskets from a handful of tills to at least one other location than the entrance. These stores should be run for the convenience of customers, not staff.

More complex ≠ difficult

As anyone who has worked in one will tell you, they are most definitely not run such that there are plenty of hours to make sure the customer journey is as good as it could possibly be.

[bilky asko]

1. Lack of carrier bags at each till. The amount of times I've had to leave my shopping unattended to go and find someone to get a bag, and then when I return someone's standing at my till about to move my items to one side. I know you might say "well bring your own and help the environment", and whenever I leave my apartment specifically to shop at my local store I do. But I shouldn't feel inconvenienced when I decide to pop in while passing to pick up some items.

JS seem to have them in a box beneath the tray where your basket is supposed to rest. I'm guessing people robbing bags is the reason the others are less keen.

Morrisons near me have the huge pile of paper bags as well as ones of many kinds under the conveyor of the larger self-service tills. My nearest Tesco seems to be more on top of keeping the bags of the self-service tills stocked up, but there's rarely more than 10 or 15 at a time. Perhaps it's the luxury of only having to manage four of them in a superstore.

[Martin Phillp]

The Tesco Express I use with self service, you have to ask the cashier to give you a bag. An interesting quirk is that the security guard is allowed to go into the staff interface if there's a problem with the scales or if a customer wants to remove a product.