Metropol

all new Phil wrote: Wed 21 Aug, 2024 19.47 I see Waitrose is planning to open around a hundred convenience stores and refurbish a number of existing stores too. I think convenience stores in the UK are generally quite poor so this’ll be interesting to see.

I guess it depends how they're done. The existing Little Waitrose at Jesmond is more similar to an ex Tesco Metro rather than an Express. I don't mind it personally, has a decent range tbh.

Zimba wrote: Thu 22 Aug, 2024 09.15

all new Phil wrote: Wed 21 Aug, 2024 19.47 I see Waitrose is planning to open around a hundred convenience stores and refurbish a number of existing stores too. I think convenience stores in the UK are generally quite poor so this’ll be interesting to see.

I guess it depends how they're done. The existing Little Waitrose at Jesmond is more similar to an ex Tesco Metro rather than an Express. I don't mind it personally, has a decent range tbh.

The Jesmond one is a little strange in that it opened as a Waitrose - but was reclassified and rebranded as a Little Waitrose within about 12 months, with no internal changes.

tillyoshea wrote: Thu 22 Aug, 2024 16.52

Zimba wrote: Thu 22 Aug, 2024 09.15

all new Phil wrote: Wed 21 Aug, 2024 19.47 I see Waitrose is planning to open around a hundred convenience stores and refurbish a number of existing stores too. I think convenience stores in the UK are generally quite poor so this’ll be interesting to see.

I guess it depends how they're done. The existing Little Waitrose at Jesmond is more similar to an ex Tesco Metro rather than an Express. I don't mind it personally, has a decent range tbh.

The Jesmond one is a little strange in that it opened as a Waitrose - but was reclassified and rebranded as a Little Waitrose within about 12 months, with no internal changes.

I wasn't going mad then, I always thought that used to be a Waitrose originally. Glad you confirmed it.

Having experienced how much more expensive everything is in a Tesco Express, compared to a Metro, I'd hate to think how much you'd have to pay for things in a Little Waitrose.

I think I'll avoid finding out.

Nick Harvey wrote: Fri 23 Aug, 2024 00.06 Having experienced how much more expensive everything is in a Tesco Express, compared to a Metro, I'd hate to think how much you'd have to pay for things in a Little Waitrose.

I think I'll avoid finding out.

Pretty sure the non-franchised ones have the same pricing as larger Waitrose.

Here's another bit of Asda cost-cutting: they've switched to royalty-free dross on Asda Radio to save on licensing fees. I've not been in a branch lately to experience it but it sounds pretty soul-destroying.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/asda ... 82086.html

thegeek wrote: Mon 16 Sep, 2024 04.12 Here's another bit of Asda cost-cutting: they've switched to royalty-free dross on Asda Radio to save on licensing fees. I've not been in a branch lately to experience it but it sounds pretty soul-destroying.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/asda ... 82086.html

It's been like this for a while now, I mentioned this on another thread a bit ago.

Some of the songs truly are dreadful, though I'm not sure they are quite as bad as those awful cover songs Hobbycraft used to play years ago, if anybody remembers those?

Hobbycraft still use them, I was in the one in Dundee earlier in the year and they were playing a horriffic cover of Into The Groove and I couldn't wait to get out of there.

I'd argue that those bad covers are even worse than the sort of thing Asda's playing now. Because the covers are songs you recognise, but they sound wrong, it drives you mad, like an aural uncanny valley. At least with the Asda music, because they aren't familiar songs you don't have that sort of reaction to them. Even if it's crap, it's not rattling in your head in the "this sounds off" way and constantly distracting you.

But I guess if you're working there and it's the same few songs over and over, as that article claims, it will drive you nuts if you work there no matter what the music is, even if it's music you liked. When I go ice skating, there's been a few periods where they used the same CD for months on end (two of which were bad covers CDs, to boot), so the fact it was always the same songs in the same order drove me nuts- and that was only from being there 1-2 hours a week, not several hours a day. Been a while since that happened thankfully and the staff just seem to bluetooth their phones to the sound system now and run a spotify playlist or similar.

I was in our Asda today and the music was on, but too quiet to actually hear what any of it was - basically it's just background noise.

I also signed up for Asda Rewards (just for they money they'll give to my kids' school) and found the app a bit bewildering. I guess it makes sense if you're doing your weekly big shop there, but the mechanics of the whole thing feels even more opaque than, say, Clubcard prices.

I was in Asda in York a few weeks ago, and I was surprised to find actual music was playing (at quite a volume too)

This brand refresh seems to be on the slow side. Saw a few elements in their back to uni / school events recently but not much else. The new font they introduced (the odd mix of upper and lower case letters) just seems to have been added to the roster of the many existing fonts they use, seemingly at random.

Noticed they’ve also renamed their premium range to ‘Exceptional’ which, I don’t know, doesn’t really work for me. ‘Extra Special’ sounded right as it’s something people would say - “get some of that extra special stuff”. ‘Exceptional’ just sounds a bit.. cold?