Morrisons’ store on Foss Island Road in York pipped its rivals to the post this week. With a score of 80 points, the store was Morrisons’ first Grocer 33 win since mid-October. Availability made all the difference: the store had just one not-stocked item and zero out-of-stocks.
Our shopper was mightily impressed in plenty of other areas too, complimenting the store’s “very attractive” Easter and Mother’s Day displays. “Someone in this store has a good eye for displaying new items,” she noted.
There was no music and no loud announcements, which “created a nice, peaceful atmosphere”.
Our shopper was in a mischievous mood on this Saturday morning visit, and asked to be shown to the same aisle twice “just to test the colleague”.
Her high jinks were met with a straight bat by staff, who were “helpful and keen to help me” and walked her to the correct section quickly. Even the staff who were picking food for delivery orders (see p26) were happy to stop what they were doing and help, she noted.
In second place by just three points was Waitrose in Glasgow. Its one out-of-stock and two not-stocked items stopped it from taking the top prize. However, it’s worth noting the store was less than half, sometimes even a third of, the size of all its rivals this week.
Our shopper loved the “great quality” on offer here, especially the bakery. The store had a well-thought-out layout and “fantastic” staff, making it “a great spot for anyone who values good ingredients and an enjoyable shopping experience”.
Next came Tesco on 75 points. That score was helped by a decent performance on availability: it had one out-of-stock and one item not stocked. That was particularly impressive given the store was undergoing a major replan, meaning a lot of the sections had been moved around.
To assist customers, our shopper said there were “numerous signs indicating where various items could now be found, as well as one or two additional staff with signboards offering help to customers”.
Despite the major disruption, he said “staff appeared to be remaining positive and coping with it well”.
In fourth this week on 70 points was Asda in Andover, whose score was hit hard by two out-of-stock items. It also scored poorly on tills & checkouts: our shopper noted only two out of eight tills were open and the wait seemed “overly long” for a quiet store.
The outcome was far more positive for shop floor service, where a staff member appeared “as if by magic” after our shopper had begun “talking to myself, saying the name of the product” while trying to locate its whereabouts.
Finally, in Pimlico, the local Sainsbury’s mustered just 27 points. The store received a score of zero for availability – the result of four out-of-stocks and two not-stocked items –and didn’t fare much better elsewhere.
The store scored just two out of 20 for shop floor service, with “hardly anyone” around to ask for help. After our shopper finally found a staff member, they confided in her that “customers were fed up and so were shop staff”.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given the “non-existent” service, the layout was “all wrong” and there was “a lot of rubbish on the floors”. Our shopper ended her visit feeling she “would not return to this branch unless I really needed to”.
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