Who we visited

Mace Hamilton Express, Cregagh Road, County Antrim, NI

Nisa, Chapel House Drive, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

sainsbury's Local, South Ealing Road, London

spar, Freehold Road, Ipswich, Suffolk

tesco express, Hobs Moat Road, Shirley, West Midlands

How they performed

Standards were below par at the convenience stores we visited this week. None managed to provide a full basket of goods for our mystery shoppers and few managed to deliver above-average standards of service.

When it came to availability, Tesco's Express store in Shirley was probably the best of the bunch.

Our shopper was able to leave with nine of the items that she went in for, as it was out of stock of fresh semi skilled milk in four pint bottles and running low on all other varieties of milk.

Customer service was also running a little light. She said the floor was littered with bits of paper and rubbish while the member of staff that served her at checkout offered no greeting, and simply shouted "see you" as she left.

Sainsbury's Local store on South Ealing Road in London, provided our shopper with just seven of the items on her list. While staff were helpful and polite, our shopper added that they were rather obstructive, with a large number engaged in shelf stacking.

The Nisa store on Chapel House drive in Newcastle was clean and well laid out, but was sold out of the six pack of bacon when our shopper visited.

He also noted that the shelf-edge labels on the branded bread products were poorly placed and difficult to read.

The Hamilton Mace Express store on Cregagh Road in Country Antrim did not have an alcohol licence and so did not sell beer.

The Spar in Freehold Road in Ipswich did not stock 4 x 440 packs of Stella Artois and was out of stock of Tetley teabags.

However, it impressed our shopper with its high levels of customer service.

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