Your Friendly Neighbourhood Store

[poliphilo]

 You enter Sainsbury's through an automatic gate with a blue arrow. It swings to behind you and you see a no-exit symbol on the reverse. If you try to slip out the same way, taking advantage of someone else's entrance, a loud klaxon goes off- as if to say "Stop thief! Stop thief! Stop thief!

Comments

[mtbc]

I hate how supermarkets try to limit my movements. Sometimes we rethink and mid-shop want to swap the basket for a trolley. Sometimes I want to go to the toilet that's on the other side of the checkout. Sometimes one of us needs something from the car, maybe we forgot the bags or whatever. The range of ways one may cut through are becoming inconveniently tiny. I don't have much polite to say to them about it. It certainly makes me less likely to go.

Though, right now, Co-op are annoying me too. I complained to them about how the "do you want a receipt?" appears without warning then disappears promptly, if you're looking the wrong way or don't move quickly, no receipt for you. Their latest response is: The information we require is: More information on your query. Huh?

[poliphilo]

I don't think the big supermarkets respect their customers or- for that matter- their staff. They're convenient but also exploitative and controlling. I'd always rather use small local shops.

[qatsi]

It's a high-volume, low-margin business. They are paranoid about "shrinkage" (the euphemistic term for shoplifting, but I suppose it also covers potential insider theft). I would imagine individual stores are monitored carefully for it. There was an "away day" at work a month or so ago and whilst most of it was a simple waste of time, the testimonials from in-store staff about the difficulties some people face and the issues that raises were genuinely depressing.