Features no longer at the supermarket/shops

[Candodad]

For me I remembered today there was always a “cash only” till due to transactions with cheque/card taking longer.

When I left home I lived near the Co-Op, it was a large store and my first sterio came from there, bought on HP. My Mum bought it and was terrified my Dad would find out as he never allowed anything to be bought on HP.

Seeing staff putting on price stickers on every item with a labelling gun. It was labour intensive. I remember when Marks and Spencers stopped taking cheques. And yes to counting change into your hand. I hate how you just get it in a lump now and only have time to glance to see if it looks about right.

I remember the days before those stupid plastic signs that mark out shopping territory. What was wrong with leaving a civilised gap?

When I was little I remember Safeway having a scan it yourself system. I used to beg my great aunt to take me with her so I could scan things.

Safeway used to give you a large brown paper bag for your shopping, American style, then it became all plastic carrier bags, now there is no Safeway.

I worked in a department store, it was a bit like Grace Brothers. When the notes needed removing from the till they went into one of those glass tubes with big rubber ends and were shoved into a small door which led to a chute and whoooosh, it was gone, all the way to the cashiers office.

Beetroot being cooked out the back in the greengrocers. Now it is either bunched and raw or sealed in plastic as long life, or even worse chopped up and covered in vinegar in a little plastic box. Freshly cooked beetroot is great.

@DontCallMeShitley Safeway are back here in the north!

We have recently lost our fish counter at Asda, which is a pain. There isn’t half as much choice now. DH & I used to like the salmon fillets stuffed with mozzarella, sundried tomatoes & pesto put into a cookbag with lemon & black pepper butter. No mess, no fuss & so tasty.

@HavenDilemma I seem to recall they weren't closed in some places but ours all went.

Sainsbury’s before self-service when they were proper shops with beautiful marble counters and brass fittings.

When I was a child I remember our local Sainsburys had a pulley system that moved a cashbox above head height, to connect with a cashier that sat in a tall seat and put money in the till and dispensed changed by returning the cash box to the assistant.

I was very little, so maybe the pulley and tall seat were not as high up as I remember them.

Was that like a lifeguard chair? I might vaguely remember that. That rings some sort of bell.

Does anyone remember those metal turnstile things near the entrance of supermarkets? I remember as a child going through one but instead of walking through like a normal person, followed it all the way round but then the next person went through after me and I got crushed against the bar and couldn’t breathe

The World Foods section being tiny and stocked mostly with stuff nobody ever bought

The dizzying speed with which the cashiers would locate the price sticker, key in the price on her till, shove the item down the slope to your waiting hand - never once even glancing at the till

The paper receipts which didn’t specify item names, just a list of prices

Less variety of products, fewer choices of the same thing, longer shelf lives

The cashiers always stopping to chat to children. Nowadays they’re mostly ignored

Green sheild stamps! Loads of them crammed into mums purse. Then back to my grans to lick them and stick them in a book...get so many and you could choose something from the catalogue .

We got a tea set once!

Hyperbags

The trolley flaps - the bit where you pushed the trolley through as you went into a store.

Greenshield stamps were very much the precursor to loyalty cards. My granny used to collect them, I remember one Christmas she’d collected enough for something from the catalog so she told me I could chose an item to give to my mum as a present. I took my responsibility very seriously and after much deliberation chose an onyx ashtray, which saw many years service until my mum gave up smoking some time in the late 90s.

My first Saturday job was in a supermarket in 1987. We did a lot of those things - no electronic till so everything was keyed into the till like a calculator with the price and department, cheques were written by hand (in my second job a year later they upgraded to having the machine print the cheque) and huge bulky credit card machines with carbon paper for taking an imprint of the card.

I remember shopping with my mother in Wallis as a small child and they had a freezer section containing a jumble of single frozen mousses in different flavours. We were each allowed to choose one. There was much rummaging in case your favourite might be hidden at the bottom instead of not present that day.

@wouldcouldshould I used to do that too. Oh and writing a cheque to "cash" and taking it to the post office to get cash before payday.

Now I do the modern equivalent - I get an Ocado order and pay by PayPal, the direct debit takes 2 working days to come out of my account 😂

Having to stay late to stocktake manually. Deli counters selling all sorts of delicious meats not just varieties of ham

The alcohol aisles that were chained off and the lights turned off until a certain time of day. Oh I was shocked to be informed by DH that supermarkets no longer accept cheques. I got a new chequebook recently and I was so excited to use it!

Saving stamp cards, £1 a stamp stick onto a card and if you saved £49 you got a £1 bonus!

I’m really laughing at @BarkandCheese school trip to Tesco to see barcodes

My first job was in a supermarket, you had to remember codes for fruit/veg/bakery items. Cucumbers were 1187. No idea why that’s still in my brain.