Pet Hates........or FFS

[Len Co]

All the people who used to be on the checkouts are now sorting out problems at the self service tills.

[Roy S]

Visited our local mega tescos this morning after a grand tour of the car park (my other half was driving) we ended up about as far as it was humanly possible to get from the entrance. Popped upstairs to check out (what turned out to be) the woeful record & men's clothing selection (what did I expect?). Then we got trapped up there, we hadn't noticed the down travellator was out of order so we had to join a long queue to use the dodgy looking lift. Eventually it was our turn to descend & we were joined by a sweaty unsteady looking delivery guy who had the most overloaded sack barrow I'd ever seen, needless to say he never rested his load & I was expecting it to fall on us at any moment. Glad to get out of there we started shopping (joy). As I'd understood our agreement we needed about 3 things & I really don't understand why we needed to go up & down EVERY SINGLE AISLE. My partner pointed out products of interest 'Ooh look dog biscuits' (we don't have a dog) & I got to fight a pensioner over the reduced display because he thought I was after his chicken livers (who the f*** eats chicken livers?). We'd scanned stuff as we went (still don't know where the entry for air freshener came from, a suggestion maybe) but the falsely happy overtly patronising blue nylon suited tesco SS officer type obviously didn't like the look of us and checked what we'd scanned. Not a pleasant experience, I'll stick to getting it delivered I think.

[Marco]

Get you in and out as fast as possible. They're subliminally training us to make our shop as quick and efficient as possible by making it such a dismal experience,

I get what you're saying, but having worked in retail for years, albeit some time ago, I can say with some certainty that that's the complete opposite of the management directive - and I'd be very confident that if you approached the chief executive of Tesco, Asda or whatever, and put that theory to him or her, they'd tell you anything different.

The primary directive/aim is to encourage customers to spend as much as possible (via various means) during the time that they're present in the store, not to chase them out as soon as possible. And making the shopping experience as dismal as possible, simply doesn't facilitate that aim.

From a personal point of view, I don't find the shopping part of the experience dismal, simply the paying for it at the checkouts, which *is* dismal in the extreme

*However*, the experience there at the likes of Aldi and Lidl, is rather different from what it is at checkouts in other supermarkets (much quicker and more efficient), which is one of the reasons why we mostly shop there, when we choose to use supermarkets, rather than our preferred option of using local independents.

Marco.

[Marco]

Marco,

How often do you switch your supermarket?

Just like they place toys where they're most visible to our brats, they do their research into just how much you're prepared to suffer before moving your loyalty off somewhere else.

My local super size Tesco when it first opened had the tills full with assistants and packers, it was fast. Now your waiting around, things have settled down, the tills are mostly empty and so there is a call " assistants to tills", a few will come but there's still a wait.

They're not putting us first, there's an optimisation being done some are shelf stacking etc, there's only so many staff in any store and if they all come running to the tills other tasks would be interupted harming profits.

The profit optimisations have been done! If they start losing customers they'll put more staff on, but they won't because they know precisely how many minutes the average Joe will wait and have the staff just to cope with that.

Hi Bob,

We're not really loyal to any supermarket, we simply go to whichever one is convenient at the time and stocks the particular products we're looking for. In Wrexham, all the supermarkets (and all the majors ones are represented) are within easy driving distance of each other; indeed Asda and Tesco are 2 mins apart, so it's easy to switch from one to the other.

Also, in the Tesco here, there are no calls for assistants, such as you mention. What non-self service checkouts are left are usually manned by someone, and there's always staff on hand to help if you need it. The same applies in the other supermarkets.

I've personally never had a problem of having to wait for an assistant to come and open a till, but rather get frustrated at how slow the staff are at scanning goods through tills, often due to chatting shit with other customers, when all I want [never mind the supermarket] is to be in and out ASAP, as I'm not a big fan of supermarkets. We prefer using our local butcher, fishmonger, etc.

Retail, in any sector of the market, has always been about *maximising profit*, but as I said to Martin, you don't achieve that by deliberately making the shopping experience as dismal as possible for customers. It's that way simply because of how staff are trained these days (or the lack of such), and also crucially the type of people who are employed, chosen simply to be obedient 'robots to the system', as was mentioned earlier - so in effect you get what you create!

Marco.

[Joe]

The number of times this comes up on this thread its got to be number one pet hate. I am now in the habit of calming myself down even before entering the supermarket. It's the only way to prevent a kill-crazy rampage. It's not just the checkouts, it's the whole supermarket experience. Is it designed to be as unpleasant as possible? Naïve question, I know.

I don't mind supermarket shopping and, as long as I can avoid busy times, it's not really unpleasant. What I truly hate is shopping at Ikea and/or B&Q. We always seem to spend ages drifting round them and either leave empty-handed or, in the case of Ikea, with something we don't really want or need, but feel obliged to buy to offset the hours of our lives we've wasted.

[Macca]

I get what you're saying, but having worked in retail for years, albeit some time ago, I can say with some certainty that that's the complete opposite of the management directive - and I'd be very confident that if you approached the chief executive of Tesco, Asda or whatever, and put that theory to him or her, they'd tell you anything different.

The primary directive/aim is to encourage customers to spend as much as possible (via various means) during the time they're present in the store, not to chase them out as soon as possible. And making the shopping experience as dismal as possible, simply doesn't facilitate that aim.
.

They want you to spend as much as possible but they also want you to do it in the quickest time possible. If you go to your local supermarket and you struggle to park every time because the car park is so full, and then when you get in there the place is so packed you can't get around, you're going to start going somewhere else.


They put a lot of thought into making it what it is so I can't agree that the dismal nature of it is due to poor management - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...s-8228864.html


if they wanted you to stay as long as possible they'd design the experience to be more like a casino, where that is one of the primary goals. The casino will have soft lighting, mood music, a confusing, rambling layout, and the exits will not be obvious. Whereas a supermarket has nice straight aisles, multiple big exits that are in plain view, harsh strip lighting, annoying jingles playing on the PA, and so on.


What you're saying might be more true of a department store where they want you to take your time and browse around. The department store more closely resembles a casino in layout and atmosphere.

[struth]

Quite like going round a decent shop. Staff is the biggest cost in a shop I guess so they try and utilise is best they can. Folk have to have breaks etc.
You often hear the call to the tills in tesco so guessing they are doing it more shirt sleeves staff wise

[Macca]

They have some sort of guideline in that if more than 3 people are queuing at the tills then they open another because they know that queuing at the till is one of the main things that gives a bad experience. The reason it takes forever to get a new till open after the call goes out is because no-one likes working on the tills so they will all go and skulk at the back of the warehouse and look busy rather than come running to help. That's what used to happen when I worked in a supermarket, anyway. okay that was 35 years ago but I doubt anything has changed.

[walpurgis]

I wouldn't know about such things. I have the butler send one of the junior staff out to obtain essentials.

[Pigmy Pony]

If the supermarkets wanted you in and out of there asap why would they put essentials (milk, bread, adult nappies) miles from the entrance?