It's miserable now in my local small Sainsbury's

[paddleboardingmum]

They have for some unknown reason moved absolutely everything. I think they got rid of the door security person and have put plastic sliders in front of everything even bars of chocolate so that it's hard to reach them. Coffee with security tags on, big screens in front of the tills like you're in a bank. I get that there are reasons but it has made shopping there quite miserable.

Sorry to hear this @AutumnedCrow

I stopped using my local Lidl for this reason.

You can only exit the store if you have a receipt so if you don't buy anything you're told to 'wait for another customer to let you out'.

Absolutely not. Bye.

Thank the thriving scumbags who shoplift, and the police who Can't be arsed to do anything. How long before it moves to Argos style shopping, as PP said, or home delivery/prepaid click and collect?

Blame the shop lifters and the people who buy from shop lifters.

In our one they have caged the staff tills in with huge perspex sheets and a cage thing over the top. The staff are having to shout at the customers because neither party can hear each other well through the perspex. It feels like an American prison. Customers are now shouting at staff and theyve had more drive offs without paying because the staff can’t get to them. Staff hate it and customers do too. Looks really awful too. We are in a leafy part of Surrey!

We go to a medium sized Sainsbury’s fairly often. DH considers himself a bit of a wine connoisseur (as opposed to me looking for £5 bottles of plonk…) when you loiter in the booze isles, I’ve noticed there’ll be a tannoy announcement “can a colleague please attend the alcohol isle” no one ever turns up, but presume thats to put you off shop lifting!

Blame the shop lifters and the people who buy from shop lifters.

Of course but not all shops are as bad. And is that what we're headed to now, bars of chocolate being locked behind plastic. I really don't think it will even stop shoplifters anyway, but it's making a much less good shopping experience for everyone else.

The manager at Balham local gave me a beeeeyotiful bouquet at Xmas cos they had too many flowers.

The blooms lasted well through Jan. Lovely man, lovely 💐

The shops could still provide a chair or bench by the tills for the many people trapped inside who might not be able to stand indefinitely, like they did before Covid, and like Waitrose, Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and M&S do.

I can’t vault a barrier any more, nor can I stand around indefinitely.

I don’t think Sainsburys has thought this through in terms of customer loyalty and who spends the most money. If I feel trapped, and can’t sit down, and can’t get into cabinets, then I won’t go there.

It’s women who mostly drive family food & grocery shopping decisions. Being used as a tool to fight shops’ shoplifting problems is not attractive to me.

A few days ago I was thinking about shopping when I was a child when self service supermarkets were very unusual. Except for a few items on open shelves in the shop, customers had to queue at the counter and ask assistants for what they wanted. The shop assistants then took items off the shelves that were behind the counter. It was seeing a shop lifter that made me think about it and wonder if shops would ever go back to something similar.

It would be similar to Argos food shopping.

@Sunshineandblueskysalltheway I was in a Lidl where I’d not bought anything and couldn’t get out and I forced the barrier open. It set an alarm off but I’m afraid I didn’t care - I wasn’t in a great mood that day to start with!

Our small Sainsbury's has been plagued with shoplifters. They have a basic range of stock and I don't blame them- the staff are told not to intervene.

Maybe it will be all pay up front . We do for food and drinks in cafes / restaurant / pubs , so why not food shopping ? It’s probably coming in eventually, the Sainsbury’s advert currently shows everything for the individual, the robots will go around and get everything on your individual list and you pay for it first before they bring it out. Maybe the future with robots, but also scary that people will be out of a job. Then it could also be delivered by a driverless van and another robot to your door! The big companies wouid love all that :(

It's dystopian. And nectar prices can suck my arse.

My local big Sainsbury's in London is absolutely horrible - dingy, dirty, disorganised. I tend to vote with my feet and go to the further-away but much nicer Tesco, where the tills are staffed and the clubcard points seem to accumulate faster.

Sainsburys has gone really down hill.

Large store in a nice low crime area has suddenly installed barriers and cameras on the self check out which just feels as if they assume everyone is a criminal. It's better than those hideous Tescos where you have to scan a receipt to be let out.

There is usually only one manned check out with conveyor belt working. If none are open which is often the case outside peak hours, I will go and ask a staff member to open one which they do because I feel like if no one keeps doing this they will just get rid of manned check outs completely which would be a terrible thing for everyone - jobs lost, unpleasant for lonely people who may only have human interaction in a shop, disabled or infirm who find managing self checkout hard, and just the general hassle of managing a large shop on a tiny self checkout.

It's now becoming so common place to have to ask for the manned checkout that it puts me off going there because I don't like don't this. Sometime you are made to feel like you are a huge inconvenience and its annoying having to wait while they page a staff member. Waitrose and M&S are much better for this as are larger hypermarkets as they still have manned check outs on the go.

Sainsburys is more convenient for me but I find myself making the effort to shop else where because of the constant need to pester someone to open a manned check out.

Where are these stores? I live in a not very interesting bit of the North West and we don't have anything like this.

Can we stop with the ageism? I'm in my ,70s and use the self scan, plenty of people younger than me clogging up the queues for five items or fewer tills.

I'm in my ,70s and use the self scan, plenty of people younger than me clogging up the queues for five items or fewer tills.

I'm much younger than you, I can use a self scan but just I don't want to - especially for a big shop. I don't want to be messing around with getting alcohol approved and having to wait for every stupid error to be cleared by a staff member, I don't want to be having to manage a big shop alone in a tiny space not fit for purpose and I don't want to be only interacting with a machine. I hate self scan for anything other than one or two items that are not alcohol.

I use a hand held scanner in the bigger stores as I find it easier to scan and pack and so on , but you still can be stopped and have to wait for a check and that takes a while sometimes. It annoys me because if they want me to do their job for them , at least have enough staff to be around at the end part of the transaction for any queries or checks that flag up.

Well luckily for me the two sainsburys I use most in Upper Norwood and Vauxhall are both fairly good. The Vauxhall one is big. The one my SIL uses is in Sydenham and apparently is the largest in the country. She finds it very useful for homeware and kids clothes.

@TheignT And yet, older people are statistically more likely to have some kind of disability/long term health condition that makes self service a chew, hence tending to need staffed checkouts more.

The CEO of Sainsburys needs to be driving meetings with Police & Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and government ministers from the Justice and Business departments.

Some PCCs have changed their policing aims and objectives specifically to make sure that shoplifting is prioritised as a crime.

That makes more business sense to me than pissing off your customers, and I’m not Alan bleeding Sugar.

Ours is really nice. I'm sad it'll probably me all messed up soon from the sound of it..

I know I’m old and so on, but I do remember when any kind of shoplifting was taken very seriously. Ads up everywhere about the shame of being caught and many of my peers told stories of being caught taking magazines or sweets and the shame of having their parents called or being taken out the back to be interviewed by the police and the security people at the door if they got caught out.
I don’t blame staff for not getting involved these days , but it appears to be seen as a low level crime now and years ago it wasn’t even for very low priced goods.
It’s almost a job for some to sell on to others.

i