After an absence of four months, Tesco has won our Top Store award thanks to the family appeal and perfect availability at its Chorley branch in Lancashire. The 80,000 sq ft Tesco Extra boasted excellent customer service with floor staff and checkout operators interacting cheerfully yet professionally with shoppers. Unlike the other retailers visited this week, checkout queues were processed quickly and it was the only store to provide all 33 items. The current store manager was in the process of leaving the outlet to manage the nearby Bagley branch, meaning personnel manager Denise Sparkes was promoted to acting manager. Although Sparkes won't take the role permanently, she was familiar with the strengths of the store. "What puts our store ahead of our rivals is our family-friendly appeal," said Sparkes, while acknowledging that this Tesco was particularly well-suited to the area. "Our store is well-placed to capitalise on the huge influx of young families attracted to Chorley because of its affordable new housing developments. This is reflected in our store layout with products such as bikes and toys given particular prominence. "We know what young families want because many of our staff are from the same family, with couples working side-by-side to mums and daughters. It makes for a warm atmosphere and luckily domestic arguments are rare!"

Q&A with Denise Sparkes Acting store manager of the week

Which products are selling well at the moment? Pre-cooked chicken. At this time of year, people are starting diets so they are ready to squeeze into summer outfits but they also want warm food because of the chilly weather. Chicken on the deli counter fits the bill and has been selling very well. Outdoor equipment such as bikes and horse-riding gear has also been trading strongly. Any items tricky to keep on shelves? Yes! Until midnight last night, people were queuing outside the store for the new Nintendo Wii game, Grand Theft Auto IV. We were only allowed to sell it after 12am and our entire stock sold out within minutes. We can't take orders from customers so they'll have to wait till the next delivery arrives. Have you had availability problems with any food? We had a slight problem with exotic fruit. The delivery arrived and we were not satisfied with the quality. The fruit, including papayas, was spoiled by bad weather so it did not make it to the shelves. That's all sorted now, though. How is your store responding to the credit crunch? We have got lots of promotions on at the moment and, for the first time, we have given our Value food and drink range a prominent sales position at the front of the store. People are watching the pennies at the moment so the cheaper food and increased number of promotions need to be made visible. I find the contents of own-label foods to be just as good as the branded versions, anyway. Do you have an online service? Yes and it is the biggest in the world! By this I mean our latest comparative sales figures for our dotcom delivery service were better than any other Tesco outlet in the world. This is great as we only launched it 12 months ago. Do shoppers give you advice? Yes and their responses are treated very seriously. Surprisingly, although we are in Chorley, we did not sell Chorley cakes until shoppers requested it and now they sell fantastically.

 

Availability

ASDA Hemel Hempstead

0 - Although the required sizes of prawns and HP Sauce were not stocked, availability was generally good. A few packing trolleys made it difficult to walk through the fresh produce area but overall the store was very clean and tidy. Customer service was fine and a floor assistant pushed our shopper's heavily laden trolley to her car. Eight of the 11 checkouts were operating and there were queues at each of them. We visited on 25 April at 10.15am. Our shop lasted one hour. Time spent at the checkout was seven minutes.

MORRISONS Portsmouth

2 - While our shopper was in the drinks aisle she was surprised to hear a shelf stacker and security guard loudly bragging about how many fights they had been in, but other staff on the sales floor were more polite and helpful. Cream and the Hovis loaf and cream were both sold out and an overhead sign was labelled juice where there was no juice in the aisle. On a busy Friday evening, only five of the 16 checkouts were operating, which resulted in long queues. We visited on 25 April at 6.20pm. Our shop lasted 55 minutes. Time spent at the checkout was 10 minutes.

SAINSBURY’S Castle Vale, Birmingham

2 - There was no stock of pineapples or Greek yoghurt so our shopper asked a floor assistant for help. They promptly left to search the stockroom but took so long to return that our shopper got bored of waiting and went to the checkout without the items. Aside from this, customer service was good and the store was clean and tidy. Of the 30 checkouts, 23 were open, which was sufficient, and the queues were being processed rapidly. We visited on 25 April at 2.35pm. Our shop lasted one hour. Time spent at the checkout was four minutes.

TESCO Chorley Lancashire

0 - As well as providing all 33 items on the shopping list, this busy Tesco Extra ticked all the boxes for cleanliness and its aisles were completely free of clutter and packing trolleys. There were no obvious gaps on any the shelves and the fruit and vegetables looked in fresh condition. The floor staff were working enthusiastically and they were knowledgeable about the location of products. The store was well-signed and 16 of the 27 checkouts were open. We visited on 25 April at 6.00pm. Our shop lasted one hour and three minutes. Time spent at the checkout was four minutes.

WAITROSE Wandsworth, London

1 - Waitrose is clearly still having supply problems with pasta as there was a huge gap on the pasta shelf at this branch and dried spaghetti was out of stock. The required size of HP Sauce was not stocked but availability of other products was good. Our shopper was very impressed with the customer service, from the friendly floor assistant to the fast-working checkout operator, and the store was bright and clean with a logical layout. We visited on 25 April at 8.08am. Our shop lasted 35 minutes. Time spent at the checkout was four minutes.