Supermarkets discussion

[Harpo]

The other thing Morrisons are doing is reducing the amount of ambient stock cover in stores because they're desperate for working capital, so more stock is being worked directly from delivery to the shelves rather than sitting in the backup for a few days. Obviously this carries an increased risk of empty shelves if demand is higher than forecast

Trouble is, ‘just in time’ is a one-off saving. Then you’re utterly dependent on it.

 

[Peter Sarf]

The other thing Morrisons are doing is reducing the amount of ambient stock cover in stores because they're desperate for working capital, so more stock is being worked directly from delivery to the shelves rather than sitting in the backup for a few days. Obviously this carries an increased risk of empty shelves if demand is higher than forecast

I have been told that when the new owners took over the amount of staff hours at each store was reduced. I noticed things looking less organised.

Trouble is, ‘just in time’ is a one-off saving. Then you’re utterly dependent on it.

And that dependency becomes very noticeable very quickly during disruption that affects deliveries.

---

So today I see Christmass is over in Morrisons. The Easter Egg displays are all up and populated !.

I still remember at my local Morrisons that during the loo roll shortage/panic-buying a few years back the whole loo-roll section got populated with Easter merchandise. That was the whole isle on one side !.

 

[1D54]

Morrisons must be doing something right as they have recently taken over at least two co-operative stores in Leicester or does that say more about the latter, are they in a spot of bother?

 

[SuspectUsual]

Trouble is, ‘just in time’ is a one-off saving. Then you’re utterly dependent on it.

Correct. It’s shortsighted and futile. But I’ve worked in retail for three different employers in the last 20 years and each of them has done it at some point

Because beancounters live on comparisons, you end up chasing your tail at times like financial year end to manage stock down to a value rather than doing what’s right for the customer

 

[Silver Cobra]

I have been told that when the new owners took over the amount of staff hours at each store was reduced. I noticed things looking less organised.

And that dependency becomes very noticeable very quickly during disruption that affects deliveries.

---

So today I see Christmass is over in Morrisons. The Easter Egg displays are all up and populated !.

I still remember at my local Morrisons that during the loo roll shortage/panic-buying a few years back the whole loo-roll section got populated with Easter merchandise. That was the whole isle on one side !.

I can make you even more disappointed in the retail sector. The store I work for had their first Easter chocolate displays set up on Christmas Eve. We hadn't even had actual Christmas Day yet before things for Easter were being rolled out (and I thought Easter chocolate rolling out on Boxing Day last year was bad enough...)

Been happening for months now. We always go early Friday morning and there are always many empty shelves and aisles are clogged with pallets as shelf filling takes place. I think they've stopped overnight filling.

My store gave up overnight filling nearly a year ago now. We now work the core of our deliveries from 2pm (at least the fresh food side). The idea behind this is that the shelves should be at their fullest in preparation for when the home shop team begin their picking from 3am. Most decisions taken in our store now revolve around prioritising home shop rather than walk-in customers. While I don't fully agree with the idea myself, I can see why they've done this as home shop orders are already paid for at the time they are being picked, so it's needed to ensure that their orders can be completely fulfilled and not require anything being refunded due to lack of availability. It has to be said that we have had a fair number of complaints from customers regarding the aisles being cluttered while the deliveries are being worked, and the lack of availability of some product lines in the late morning after home shop has done most of it's picking (we do have a small number of colleagues working in the morning to do some replenishment, myself being one of them, but sometimes we just can't keep up with the rate of stock depletion by home shop).

 

[Bald Rick]

I can make you even more disappointed in the retail sector. The store I work for had their first Easter chocolate displays set up on Christmas Eve. We hadn't even had actual Christmas Day yet before things for Easter were being rolled out (and I thought Easter chocolate rolling out on Boxing Day last year was bad enough...)

I can trump that.

Iceland in St Albans had the Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs out on December 20th.

We hadn‘t even celebrated his birth yet, let alone started thinking about the funeral.

 

[philthetube]

The other thing Morrisons are doing is reducing the amount of ambient stock cover in stores because they're desperate for working capital, so more stock is being worked directly from delivery to the shelves rather than sitting in the backup for a few days. Obviously this carries an increased risk of empty shelves if demand is higher than forecast

I can only speak 1 branch but the farm foods local to me do not have a storage area, everything is delivery to shop floor.

 

[GusB]

Trouble is, ‘just in time’ is a one-off saving. Then you’re utterly dependent on it.

"Just in time" is fine as long as your stock management system is working correctly, your inventory is up-to-date, and your staff are sufficiently trained to use the system.

I worked for a couple of retailers. With the first one, the ordering system was more or less automatic, although store management could allocated space for "promotions" and the system would fill it accordingly. With the second retailer, I had no choice about what was coming in and spent much of my time on the phone to the helpline begging them to not send any more of the stuff that would never go... Pringles and Glenfiddich, mainly!

They brought in a promotion on Pringles, but the pack size (and barcode) had changed so that the unsold stock we already had wasn't included in the offer and head office continued to fire more stock at us.

I reckon that @SteveM70 would probably be able to have a good guess as to which company I'm referring to!

 

[DannyMich2018]

I can make you even more disappointed in the retail sector. The store I work for had their first Easter chocolate displays set up on Christmas Eve. We hadn't even had actual Christmas Day yet before things for Easter were being rolled out (and I thought Easter chocolate rolling out on Boxing Day last year was bad enough...)



My store gave up overnight filling nearly a year ago now. We now work the core of our deliveries from 2pm (at least the fresh food side). The idea behind this is that the shelves should be at their fullest in preparation for when the home shop team begin their picking from 3am. Most decisions taken in our store now revolve around prioritising home shop rather than walk-in customers. While I don't fully agree with the idea myself, I can see why they've done this as home shop orders are already paid for at the time they are being picked, so it's needed to ensure that their orders can be completely fulfilled and not require anything being refunded due to lack of availability. It has to be said that we have had a fair number of complaints from customers regarding the aisles being cluttered while the deliveries are being worked, and the lack of availability of some product lines in the late morning after home shop has done most of it's picking (we do have a small number of colleagues working in the morning to do some replenishment, myself being one of them, but sometimes we just can't keep up with the rate of stock depletion by home shop).

In Hinckley our Asda scrapped the night shift earlier in 2024 and Morrisons a little later. Aldi and Lidl don't have anyone in at night too so morning staff start at 05.00 with evening staff working till 23.00hrs.

 

[Peter Sarf]

I can make you even more disappointed in the retail sector. The store I work for had their first Easter chocolate displays set up on Christmas Eve. We hadn't even had actual Christmas Day yet before things for Easter were being rolled out (and I thought Easter chocolate rolling out on Boxing Day last year was bad enough...)



My store gave up overnight filling nearly a year ago now. We now work the core of our deliveries from 2pm (at least the fresh food side). The idea behind this is that the shelves should be at their fullest in preparation for when the home shop team begin their picking from 3am. Most decisions taken in our store now revolve around prioritising home shop rather than walk-in customers. While I don't fully agree with the idea myself, I can see why they've done this as home shop orders are already paid for at the time they are being picked, so it's needed to ensure that their orders can be completely fulfilled and not require anything being refunded due to lack of availability. It has to be said that we have had a fair number of complaints from customers regarding the aisles being cluttered while the deliveries are being worked, and the lack of availability of some product lines in the late morning after home shop has done most of it's picking (we do have a small number of colleagues working in the morning to do some replenishment, myself being one of them, but sometimes we just can't keep up with the rate of stock depletion by home shop).

Oh yes. There is a significant rise in the number of home shop staff buzzing around the store. I move quite fast but I keep getting in the way of some of these fast moving folks !. They do tend to leave their trolleys lying around blocking isles quite a lot. I mean at right angles to the flow of "traffic" - while they race off for a few hand fulls of goods.

I ought to say my local Morrisons is rather busy these days because the Sutton store has temporarily (allegedly) closed due to building problems. We had a lot of bargains earlier in 2024 while Croydon got rid of the consequent over stock. First it was perishables and then moved on to slightly longer dated stuff. Apparently there is still stock to liberate from Sutton. It might explain why we have had such a long promotion of £1 on 500ml bottles of ale - that's for me !. They did seem to put out the longer dated stuff first !!!.

 

[Mojo]

Morrisons must be doing something right as they have recently taken over at least two co-operative stores in Leicester or does that say more about the latter, are they in a spot of bother?

Are those actual full-sized Morrisons or Morrisons Daily? As the latter is a franchise brand.

I’m surprised Morrisons are going down the franchise line to be honest as some of those independent shops really are quite grim and can’t be doing their brand any good.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

I’m surprised Morrisons are going down the franchise line to be honest as some of those independent shops really are quite grim and can’t be doing their brand any good.

I think I would turn that round and wonder why independent shops would want to taint themselves with the current Morrisons image!

 

[Russel]

I’m surprised Morrisons are going down the franchise line to be honest as some of those independent shops really are quite grim and can’t be doing their brand any good.

There is one of the small Morrisons Locals near me, last summer I brought a box of Magnums, we opened them in the carpark and they were totally defrosted, I took them back into the shop and they gave me a replacement box, again, fully defrosted, turns out the freezer had stopped working and they hadn't noticed!

 

[DM352]

Coop where I used to live chose to make it small format from an average store dividing off most floor space (about 66%) for a gym and coffee shop. Delivery appears to be just in time.

Used to not mind it in its previous form as it was spacious and quieter than other stores but they probably had to downsize to be profitable unlike Wilnecote which they closed.

Lidl a mile away did the opposite and opened a bigger store

 

[route101]

I can trump that.

Iceland in St Albans had the Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs out on December 20th.

We hadn‘t even celebrated his birth yet, let alone started thinking about the funeral.

B&M had Creme Eggs, bars and Mini Egg bars in at the end of the November.

 

[Mojo]

Sainsbury’s here had loads of these “Wanzl hire trolley” today, both large and small size. Not sure what that’s about unless maybe they got them in for Christmas. They still have the dock for Smartshop scanners.

I made a beeline for one as you don’t have to pay for them, and leaving via the pedestrian entrance you can’t always guarantee there’ll be another trolley to connect to and get your money back.

 

[jfollows]

My local Sainsbury’s suddenly had coin chains on the smaller trolleys I normally use just before Christmas, so I used a monster one. Then, armed with Euro and pound coins, the next visit after Christmas the coin chains had been removed. Strange. Presumably Christmas makes it more of a hassle to chase after abandoned trolleys.

 

[Peter Sarf]

My local Sainsbury’s suddenly had coin chains on the smaller trolleys I normally use just before Christmas, so I used a monster one. Then, armed with Euro and pound coins, the next visit after Christmas the coin chains had been removed. Strange. Presumably Christmas makes it more of a hassle to chase after abandoned trolleys.

Abandoned shopping trolleys is a real headache. People take them home then dump them nearby (opposite our house for instance). The same people then steal another trolley next time they shop - if they had any common sense they would bring back the last trolley they "borrowed". The coin deposit does not seem to bother them as they can get the coin back by docking with the trolley abandoned on a previous shopping spree - that is unless I have taken it/them back on my shopping trip !.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Presumably Christmas makes it more of a hassle to chase after abandoned trolleys.

More trolleys are taken at Christmas because people buy more and those without cars can't carry it all

 

[jon0844]

Abandoned shopping trolleys is a real headache. People take them home then dump them nearby (opposite our house for instance). The same people then steal another trolley next time they shop - if they had any common sense they would bring back the last trolley they "borrowed". The coin deposit does not seem to bother them as they can get the coin back by docking with the trolley abandoned on a previous shopping spree - that is unless I have taken it/them back on my shopping trip !.

It's not that difficult to retrieve the coin, and our local Asda still has people taking not only trolleys but baskets home with them.

They regularly run out of carrier bags because people steal them and the store thinks it has more bags than it does, so no new bags are ordered.

I've not been for a while but there were days where I couldn't shop as there were almost no trolleys and a huge queue as people waited to swipe a trolley from one of the lucky ones leaving who had one.

The store in question has resisted adding coins and instead had a braking system if you left the car park but people got around that and the replacement trolleys they got didn't even have brakes fitted and so also disappeared.

It's funnier still that the same store took the decision to stop using the company that went around collecting trolleys from the local area.

That said, right now my street doesn't have any trolleys so maybe they've sent someone out to look for them.

 

[Hadders]

Sainsbury’s here had loads of these “Wanzl hire trolley” today, both large and small size. Not sure what that’s about unless maybe they got them in for Christmas. They still have the dock for Smartshop scanners.

I made a beeline for one as you don’t have to pay for them, and leaving via the pedestrian entrance you can’t always guarantee there’ll be another trolley to connect to and get your money back.

Trolleys are hired in for Christmas. Supermarkets normally keep 'reserve' trolleys at a central location and these will be sent to stores that need additional trolleys ahead of Christmas peak. These trolleys won't necessarily have coin deposits or locking wheels so they will normally be sent back for to the reserve after Christmas.

 

[Gloster]

Trolleys are hired in for Christmas. Supermarkets normally keep 'reserve' trolleys at a central location and these will be sent to stores that need additional trolleys ahead of Christmas peak. These trolleys won't necessarily have coin deposits or locking wheels so they will normally be sent back for to the reserve after Christmas.

I think they also send them out for events. For the Isle of Wight Festival I believe that Morrison’s and Sainsbury, the two most affected, bring in more to cater for all the festival-goers who load up with beer and…well, mostly beer. A day or two afterwards a truck goes up to the site and collects all the abandoned ones.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

They regularly run out of carrier bags because people steal them and the store thinks it has more bags than it does, so no new bags are ordered.

Surprising just how many folk scan their groceries at a supermarket self service till, settle up, then place their purchases in a brand new shopping bag they've just picked up and almost certainly haven't actually paid for.

 

[jon0844]

Surprising just how many folk scan their groceries at a supermarket self service till, settle up, then place their purchases in a brand new shopping bag they've just picked up and almost certainly haven't actually paid for.

It's the sort of theft that they probably convince themselves is acceptable.

 

[takno]

It's the sort of theft that they probably convince themselves is acceptable.

The supermarkets were giving the bags away until a few years ago, and only stopped doing so because the government told them they had to. It's a stretch to see the supermarkets crying massive tears over this tbh.

 

[Peter Sarf]

It's the sort of theft that they probably convince themselves is acceptable.

Probably like the half eaten packets of cakes/sweets/drinks I see dotted around my Morrisons.

 

[jon0844]

The supermarkets were giving the bags away until a few years ago, and only stopped doing so because the government told them they had to. It's a stretch to see the supermarkets crying massive tears over this tbh.

The issue is that they run out because according to their records they have loads of bags, but don't.

So in the end they have none. I guess that solves the problem for theft but does mean you better make sure you brought enough of your own bags in.

It might also explain why people who come on foot decide to take a trolley or basket home instead.

 

[py_megapixel]

In most of my local supermarkets now, you have to ask staff for a bag and they come over and scan it for you

 

[jon0844]

In most of my local supermarkets now, you have to ask staff for a bag and they come over and scan it for you

That makes more sense.

 

[DannyMich2018]

I work in a supermarket and it never ceases to amaze me how many people don't bring a bag even though it's been 9 years since they were stopped been given away free of charge.