Waitrose bagged its fourth mystery shopping victory in five weeks. Its Meanwood store in Leeds was really the only strong performer this week, with store standards and top-notch service helping it to a score of 77 points.
The store was clean and tidy and for the most part easy to navigate. Our shopper was particularly impressed by the attractive seasonal aisle, complete with arrows directing shoppers to it and snowflake stickers on the floor.
Two items looked to be out of stock, so our shopper asked a staff member, who proved attentive and helpful. She initially took our shopper to where the items would have been and then used her handheld tablet to check stock levels. She confirmed the olive oil was out of stock but then worked out that the cans of Coke must be in the storeroom and fetched them. It all meant our shopper went home with 32 out of 33 items.
There were plenty of staff on the shop floor and they all took care to keep out of customers’ way. However, they were sadly missing from the checkout area with no manned tills open, which forced our shopper to begrudgingly use the self-checkouts.
Sainsbury’s in Cannock provided a full basket, which was particularly impressive as this was a Friday evening shop. However, despite clocking up 20 points for availability, the store only managed a total of 58.
There was a lot of litter in the car park and throughout the store. There were also several abandoned stocking trolleys left around the store and empty boxes left next to shelves. The biggest disappointment, however, was the lack of attention provided by staff. When asked about the kitchen foil, a team member simply pointed and said “it’s up the aisle over there”, before returning to a conversation with a colleague. The checkout operator also chatted with a colleague as if our shopper was not there.
Tesco’s Craigavon store similarly scored well for availability but less so for store standards and service, as it managed just 55. Our shopper would have bagged a full basket had the 300ml pot of double cream been stocked.
Our shopper was disappointed by her interactions with staff. They were often hard to find and when she did find them they often seemed busy and not keen to help properly. One staff member sent her to the wrong aisle for a missing product. She then had to wait for more than five minutes in the queue for the tills as there were only two manned checkouts open.
Morrisons in Plymouth and Asda’s York branch tied at the bottom of the rankings with just 46 points. Morrisons had a lot of promotional displays, but they “were so messy and chaotic it looked like a gang of toddlers had stampeded through the place”. Staff were moving full pallets around ready to be unloaded but there were also a lot of randomly dumped pallets across the store.
A lot of fixtures looked significantly depleted and there were four out-of-stock items from our list. Our shopper also felt the store was not clean enough. The saving grace was the staff, who all took pains to provide as much help as possible.
Asda was also in a messy state. The promotional displays near the checkouts were tidy but those at the back of the store were not. The store layout was not intuitive and staff were hard to find. When our shopper did find them, most were helpful – except one who tried to fob her off at the customer service desk. There were two out-of-stocks and two not-stocked items.
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