Metropol

My local Extra seems to have been revamped. It mostly consists of moving some freezers and attaching lots of wood to things.

Wood seems to be the in thing in supermarket design at the moment. The Sainsbury's I used to work in underwent a major refit last year and all the counters had lots of wood effect stuff put in (thankfully the refit came early enough for us to avoid the nasty serif font they've now adopted)
Off brand POS is a problem however this can often come from management as well as shopfloor staff. At some point last year I was asked to make a sign promoting tiger bread (as it was still called then). It was just for an afternoon so I went into Word and made a fairly simple A4 notice with the corporate fonts. Not ideal but not exactly brand damaging. The manager took one look at it and told me I should make it again with clip art(!) and a more exciting font like Comic Sans(!!!!!!). This I hasten to add happened last July, not in 1998.

adamcobb55 wrote:Wood seems to be the in thing in supermarket design at the moment. The Sainsbury's I used to work in underwent a major refit last year and all the counters had lots of wood effect stuff put in (thankfully the refit came early enough for us to avoid the nasty serif font they've now adopted)
Off brand POS is a problem however this can often come from management as well as shopfloor staff. At some point last year I was asked to make a sign promoting tiger bread (as it was still called then). It was just for an afternoon so I went into Word and made a fairly simple A4 notice with the corporate fonts. Not ideal but not exactly brand damaging. The manager took one look at it and told me I should make it again with clip art(!) and a more exciting font like Comic Sans(!!!!!!). This I hasten to add happened last July, not in 1998.

Comic Sans and they were a manager. That should be made an instant dismissal offence.

The shop I work in lacks the correct font (Swiss 721) on the shop floor computers. Frankly its infuriating not least because the default templates for A4 POS prints in Arial meaning there is a mismatch between any sent in printed stuff and any shop generated stuff.

Frankly if they don't want to have Swiss on the PCs for whatever reason they should print the pricing POS in Arial too to give a consistent look.

adamcobb55 wrote:Wood seems to be the in thing in supermarket design at the moment. The Sainsbury's I used to work in underwent a major refit last year and all the counters had lots of wood effect stuff put in (thankfully the refit came early enough for us to avoid the nasty serif font they've now adopted)
Off brand POS is a problem however this can often come from management as well as shopfloor staff. At some point last year I was asked to make a sign promoting tiger bread (as it was still called then). It was just for an afternoon so I went into Word and made a fairly simple A4 notice with the corporate fonts. Not ideal but not exactly brand damaging. The manager took one look at it and told me I should make it again with clip art(!) and a more exciting font like Comic Sans(!!!!!!). This I hasten to add happened last July, not in 1998.

The Tesco that was built in Filey back in 2010 was made out of lots of wood and glass, basically to enhance the green credentials to the council. It actually looks quite nice, but is a bit spoiled by the occasional yellow freezer.

Here are some images, taken the day before it opened:





And here is a sign that originally said "Superstore Deliveries Only", and was corrected in the most excellent of ways:



I'm not sure if I've already mentioned this, but I've noticed that the Hull St. Stephen's Extra seems to be a little short on the little signs denoting the categories for the freezers. They decided to solve it by making colour copies of them (at the lowest possible quality, it seems), leading to an unprofessional mess, in POS terms anyway.

There's a Tesco Express just up the road from where I work which was built in a similar style - I really like it and the interior is just as nice too. That and it's never that busy so you don't have to wait to get served or waste even more precious time by being told that there's an unexpected item in the bagging area.

Here's a Google Stalk link to said Express store:

http://www.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.5402 ... 34,,0,0.99

Have Tesco suddenly jumped on some serious customer service training?

I was in our local Tesco Metro around 7pm and stopped for the barest moment in an aisle (mainly trying to remember my mental shopping list) when I was accosted by a member of staff asking if I needed help to find something (I got him to show me the honey even though I knew where it was...). He took me there.

Or was it just a keen new member of staff?

A man in a yellow shirt carrying a giant yellow lollipop reading "here to help" has been installed in my Tesco too.

I don't like it, but I'm taking it as a tacit admission that Tesco have been absolutely shitting themselves lately. That I do like, as all of their offers reward me for not changing my behaviour at all.

I think the lollipop men are for big store revamps where everything moves around.

I've noticed their offers are actually suddenly competitive for once.

Has anyone tried any of the everyday value food? Things like value teacakes (of the toasting kind) always looked like shit, however the new EV ones actually look perfectly acceptable. The ED meat and fruit also appears to be vastly superior to what it replaced.

Interestingly, after mentioning the Sevenoaks Tesco a couple of weeks back, I read an article today claiming it's supposedly the last remaining store with a separate "Home n Wear" section, which were a staple of Tesco stores back in the 70s and 80s. I do remember the out-of-town store here used to have its non-food department in a separate building (as well as having a garden centre) until the mid-90s when the store was extended (by demolishing the garden centre), when it became an extra stock room (though still had the early 80s entrance/no entry signs on the doors, complete with tick logo). All got demolished when they built the Extra in 2006 though. I'm sure the non-food bit in the town centre store was more separate too, and you had to go through a gate to get in and out of it, and it had a carpeted floor (which, again all went when that store was revamped circa 1996).

Pete wrote:I think the lollipop men are for big store revamps where everything moves around.

I've noticed their offers are actually suddenly competitive for once.

Has anyone tried any of the everyday value food? Things like value teacakes (of the toasting kind) always looked like shit, however the new EV ones actually look perfectly acceptable. The ED meat and fruit also appears to be vastly superior to what it replaced.

It has had a massive effect - but most of the products are the same as the one they replaced (a few exceptions on fresh and produce which are flagged as 'Improved').

I know exactly what you mean though. I took 20 seconds the other day while I considered the EV lamb mince over the standard brand. The packaging is arguably nicer than their standard brand.

The word 'mutton' was ultimately enough to put me off.