Close the supermarket to the public

[Justchecking2020]

Would it be better, if all staff on the supermarket were picking up shopping for click and collect orders ?

By closing the door on the public and the need for an order to be associated to an account, should reduce selfish peoples ability to clear shelves of essentials.

Plus accounts could be flagged if they are keyworkers or vulnerable people to ensure they are served quicker to get them home asap.

Allowing non technical people to bring a shopping list to the door or phone in an order. To ensure everyone can get served.

Surely restricting contact between general public and the supermarket workers (bless them for continue to work in a high risk place to keep us in food) would help reduce infection rates and stop us all tripsing physical around the same shop together, passing germs around.

Or would that not work ?

What about those who are self isolating and can’t get click & collect? Should all the staff with cars start delivering shopping in their own vehicles? I understand where you’re coming from but the logistics just don’t work at all

@starrysimon then they get a delivery? If they’re self isolating they can’t go to the supermarket anyway so what difference does it make?

Obviously I mean that their family or friends are going to the supermarket for them if in self isolation - I’ve had no sleep🤦🏼‍♀️ All click and collects are bought out anyway for the next month

No deliveries from any supermarket in my average sized town available at all. They are that booked out you cannot even book for late next month in advance. Have you tried lately? God knows what it’s like in cities!

If absolutely every one did click and collect instead of going in the store the staff would still be coming into contact with everyone. It also wouldn’t work in terms of time scale. Especially since most no longer do bags so a lot of time is consumed by customers packing their own bags or lugging items into the car one by one. I do really understand where you’re coming from but it wouldn’t work. The army needs to be deployed to deliver to those who cannot get a delivery or click and collect slot. The supermarkets also need to recruit as many delivery drivers as possible and get more trucks. That is the only logical solution. But then they are all still coming into contact with potential contaminated items and customers. It’s a tricky one isn’t it!

The logistics of this are unfathomable. It beggars belief how many people come up with ideas without any notion of what is actually possible.

Maybe they could install security glass around the tills and have the card machine on the outside. Card payments only. To distance staff from customers. Only stock up when store is closed. Security on the door to only allow a certain amount of people in at one time for say a timed hour. People still need to buy food unfortunately and it’s mainly those who have been pushed out by selfish panic buyers. Like myself, heavily pg, going to a supermarket isn’t ideal when everyone’s pushing and shoving so something does need to be put in place.

DH went to an Aldi at 7:30pm last night and only a few people in there so I think most are panic buying when the store opens. Still plenty of stock late at night

I'd love someone to work out the logistics of everyone getting enough.

We've done it for years, there's no reason for it to fail now.

But my tesco online delivery has less than a third of my original shop left in the basket, and the one I booked for three weeks time is full of sauces and random things because that's all there is to put in.

You need equipment - trollies, crates, handsets, yada yada, etc etc...can you imagine how many you’d need?

I strongly suspect lots of people think pickers walk around with a shopping list per person putting their shopping into a little old shopping trolley with their name on it!

i'm a non food retail worker and we are trialling this along with staying open for normal shopping

its popular

op i think its a great idea actually as nobody seems to understand the logistics of the supermarket problem

some of our colleagues went over to lidl to help the staff there stock the shelves......business supporting businesses. never set foot in the place til then, but we were happy to help them

you dont need trollies....put it all on a wooden pallet then move it out to the car with a manual pump truck

Non food doing it is incomparable.

you dont need trollies....put it all on a wooden pallet then move it out to the car with a manual pump truck

You what now?! 😂

then they get a delivery?

Ha! In our area the delivery slots are booked out for the next few weeks.

But thanks for giving DH and I a good laugh.

Not a clue...

Improving access for the super-vulnerable (the ones who will be getting the additional advice emails from NHS next week) needs to be given greater priority. Ideally by priority access to delivery slots, but also quiet time shopping that is actually quiet.

And I hope it all normalises soon.

People are simultaneously both exasperated with the difficulties of getting groceries, and hugely appreciative of the individuals working so hard to keep it going

My mother and my father (divorced) will not do online shopping as they don’t trust the payment security. I doubt they are the only ones. Many older people do not have the ability to do online shopping.
And how do you police it to check they are in the priority groups?

@DameXanaduBramble dont be ridiculous theres a solution there if they really ant one....you dont need the usual equipment, you improvise.

if you want it to work then it will

the pallet idea is for click and collect.....customer orders, the shopping is picked and no trolley is then needed for larger orders. its just wheeled out to the car

quite easy really and since posting i've seen asda do the same on our local fb page. glad to see they are using some common sense!

@SapphireSalute - I’d love to hear your non ridiculous solution to the problem.

"I strongly suspect lots of people think pickers walk around with a shopping list per person putting their shopping into a little old shopping trolley with their name on it!"
*
Bramble* they do here. My Tesco is full of pickers with box trolleys picking for each person. What do they do where you live?

Our Tesco doesn't even do click and collect! Nowhere else here does either.

If a store (or the whole company) doesn’t already do “click and collect” then this is not a simple thing to switch on. Off the top of my head:

The range for that store would have to be uploaded onto the system (if one exists) and linked to wider company systems so it knows what’s not available. Time slots have to line up with resource available in that store. Staff have to have enough devices to do the picking on (or do it off bits of paper, which is wildly unreliable). They have to have something to pick the items into - everyone happy to pay 30p/bag now that most stores don’t do the 5p carriers any more? Customers would only be allowed to collect within their allocated timeslot. Anything not collected would have to be put back, especially if fresh.

If customers want to pay cash, all the shopping would have to be put through a checkout anyway. Ditto if you don’t have the right tech in stores already and are picking from a paper list.

It’s also hugely labour intensive at the best of times, and stores don’t have the additional staff needed.

The fact that UK supermarkets are rammed full of people for 12 solid hours at a time is spreading the virus. Restrictions should be placed on the numbers accessing supermarkets and they should also remove trolleys and only provide baskets, to reduce stockpiling and panic buying.