The Tesco & other non-Morrisons supermarket thread

[all new Phil]

I don't find the paper bags particularly awful. What is it that you do to these that makes them worse than plastic?

I put fruit in them and they break.

Why do you need to put your fruit in a bag?

[Philip]

I don't find the paper bags particularly awful. What is it that you do to these that makes them worse than plastic?

I put fruit in them and they break.

Why do you need to put your fruit in a bag?

So they don't squashed and leak all over your proper bags, so they can be grouped together easily at the checkout, so you can keep them stored in the fridge or cupboards - lots of reasons.

[bilky asko]

I have a specific vegetables carrier bag when I check out - a Sainsbury's one. No real issues with cross-contamination there. The Tesco anniversary bag gets reserved for large cereal boxes and the like, and the classy Heron Foods bag is perfect for taking crisps. And the M&S freezer bag is the perfect size for three 6-pint bottles of milk.

I find that with the Morrisons brown fruit & veg bags require a gentle touch rather than dropping a swede into them from a great height.

[JAS84]

Heron have won in the long running war with Fultons: https://www.thestar.co.uk/business/fult ... ms-3565316

There's a couple of those in Hull, so why didn't I see that in the Hull Daily Mail or on their website at any point in the past week since you posted that?

[Pete]

I find that with the Morrisons brown fruit & veg bags require a gentle touch rather than dropping a swede into them from a great height.

yes i quite liked the tesco paper bags for the odd thing like loose peppers. but you did have to be gentle with them. I really think not giving bags away for free for things like loose mushrooms is taking the piss somewhat given they could fall through the holes in the trolley.

[WillPS]

Heron have won in the long running war with Fultons: https://www.thestar.co.uk/business/fult ... ms-3565316

There's a couple of those in Hull, so why didn't I see that in the Hull Daily Mail or on their website at any point in the past week since you posted that?

Must be the work of the Hull Milk Cartel.

[gottago]

MyWaitrose's withdrawal of its free newspaper for "something new" as I think they said is, actually, a return of the exact same personalised offers system that they withdrew around three or four years ago because customers found it "confusing". And they've now made it even more confusing by making you have to not only add the offer but then scan a voucher on your phone which I'm pretty sure you didn't have to do previously.

But oddly there's a newspaper vouchers section on the website where you can actually still get your most bought (I assume as I have The Guardian on there) newspaper for free, and with no minimum spend, but again you have to scan the voucher on your phone. So I'm not sure what the point was of withdrawing the normal newspaper offer, or at least why they didn't advertise that the way it works was going to change.

[tillyoshea]

MyWaitrose's withdrawal of its free newspaper for "something new" as I think they said is, actually, a return of the exact same personalised offers system that they withdrew around three or four years ago because customers found it "confusing". And they've now made it even more confusing by making you have to not only add the offer but then scan a voucher on your phone which I'm pretty sure you didn't have to do previously.

But oddly there's a newspaper vouchers section on the website where you can actually still get your most bought (I assume as I have The Guardian on there) newspaper for free, and with no minimum spend, but again you have to scan the voucher on your phone. So I'm not sure what the point was of withdrawing the normal newspaper offer, or at least why they didn't advertise that the way it works was going to change.

It’s not universal any more - as someone who pops into Waitrose now and again (but not regularly), I have no personalised offers available and no newspaper voucher.

[BBC TV Centre]

MyWaitrose's withdrawal of its free newspaper for "something new" as I think they said is, actually, a return of the exact same personalised offers system that they withdrew around three or four years ago because customers found it "confusing". And they've now made it even more confusing by making you have to not only add the offer but then scan a voucher on your phone which I'm pretty sure you didn't have to do previously.

But oddly there's a newspaper vouchers section on the website where you can actually still get your most bought (I assume as I have The Guardian on there) newspaper for free, and with no minimum spend, but again you have to scan the voucher on your phone. So I'm not sure what the point was of withdrawing the normal newspaper offer, or at least why they didn't advertise that the way it works was going to change.

It’s not universal any more - as someone who pops into Waitrose now and again (but not regularly), I have no personalised offers available and no newspaper voucher.

Thanks to gottago for highlighting the newspaper offer in the Waitrose website/app. I have forgotten what my login for the website was, and couldn't be arsed to reset it.

Out of interest of reading this thread I remembered I had the (never used) app on my phone, so I visited it and there was the newspaper voucher section, and all of mine were for the Times and Sunday Times (as I get the latter weekly).

During the first lockdown I started shopping in Waitrose more as they had better availability/less of a queue (when we all were lined up in a car park on a freezing March) and I suppose it kind of stuck. Plus I found the food tended to have a better shelf life.

I can only surmise the reason for this shift in tactic by Waitrose is that it was a two-fold exercise, one, to cut costs by putting another barrier to entry (just as they had done with the coffee machines before covid) and using the card data to manage the volumes and titles of newspapers ordered. Previously, the mechanic was fairly simple, register for a MyW card, spend £10 and get a free newspaper.

Now it's a lot more convoluted, you need to have a smartphone, need to be able to work and install the app, need to activate the voucher on the day you want to use it etc. That will put some people off.

Two, it will prove to some suit in management that the personalised approach has some value.

Evidently by this thread we all have MyW cards but two different approaches, tillyoshea shops rarely in Waitrose, yet gottago and I are regular visitors and have fed the system with data to spit the offers for the newspapers. Therefore, meaning since the perk will be retained we are likely to continue shopping there, as we have done already.

[thegeek]

I get that the point of a loyalty scheme is to encourage repeat custom, but having not been to Waitrose recently, it's a bit of a swizz to remember to look at the app on my way to the shop and find that I've got no vouchers because they don't have enough of a shopping history for me.

[gottago]

I get that the point of a loyalty scheme is to encourage repeat custom, but having not been to Waitrose recently, it's a bit of a swizz to remember to look at the app on my way to the shop and find that I've got no vouchers because they don't have enough of a shopping history for me.

I actually think you need to select the vouchers on the website and then they will appear in your app as 'selected vouchers' so worth having a look at that. The newspapers automatically appear for me though. It's a terrible user experience but Waitrose's online presence has always been fucking awful. Still plenty of pages on there with the old Waitrose logo on.