The best time to shop?

[neversleepagain]

We've been fortunate to get delivery slots until now and it looks like I'll need to venture out for the first time since schools shut. DH is a NHS worker and works shifts so it I need to plan this around when he'll be home to stay with DC.

When do people find the best time to shop for shortest queues and maximum stock on shelves (I do realise I am asking a lot here).

I've been going in my lunch break and there were no queues, some empty shelves but not terrible. However, the last time I went was Tuesday.

I went at 6pm yesterday to a large supermarket and it was virtually empty

*empty of people but there was quite a lot of stock, no pasta / canned goods / frozen food but lots of fruit veg meat bread etc

I'd like to know this. I can't do the 2 hour wait outside my local and the little waitrose around the corner is eating away at my purse.

Our local Tesco, a metro store, restock fresh meat/cheese first thing so best go around 8.15am for that. Dry produce tends to get restocked throughout the day. I've not seen queues, though I've been once since lockdown, but there were queues outside the M&S foodhall.

I went to Tesco at 7am and the queues outside were so long I drove around and went home. I am going to try one evening.

I have just been to Aldi. Only about 5 people in the queue. One in one out basis. Shelves were fully stocked of everything including plenty of meat, eggs, tins. They even had pasta and loo roll!

I went to tesco at 10.30 am two days ago. There were queues but nothing awful. There was also plenty of food with the usual gaps these days.

This is helpful, thanks everyone.

I think it depends where you live.
MiL is in the South West, very small town with 5 superstores within 10 mins. No empty shelves.

Busy, urban areas with lots of people and mostly small supermarkets?
Different story.

I was at Tesco for 6am opening last Thursday & was out by 6.30. Didn't look at the big ticket items but got the fruit/veg/milk etc I needed.

Stepdad went to Asda at 9.30 Saturday (opened 8am) & queued for 30 mins. He got everything we & they needed but again not big ticket items.

Seen a queue outside our Lidl at about 3pm but not horrendous

In a nutshell, it depends unfortunately.

It sounds like there is no pattern and you probably just have to go look at your local supermarket to see for yourself what it is like.

DP went to the two main supermarkets in our town a couple of hours ago. He said the carparks in both were very full and a very long queue outside the shop.

So he didn't bother, obviously - he picked up a couple of things that we really needed today from the Co-op on the way back but there was only a very limited choice of bread.

I do wonder if the people waiting are so desperate that they can't wait any longer and have no choice but to queue up, or if they just put up with it for what reason I don't know. Maybe some genuinely don't mind, or have come a long way and want to get it over with.

Does anyone know how the info on google maps about how busy somewhere is is collected? Is it up-to-date or based on patterns over time?

@crazydiamond222 it's based on location data so up to date & live. It's based on google location though which not every phone has & has it on so will be understated, so if it says it's just it's v busy.

You can look on Google maps to get a rough idea (although lower than usual numbers might just be due to less people allowed in stores??).

Oops, cross posted.

I think it's up to date based on how many active phones there are in any particular location and how fast they are moving (on the roads for traffic).

I've just looked at what it says for the two shops I mention upthread, and it says one is a little busy but the other is quieter than usual - but maybe the situation has changed as it is a good 2/3 hours since DP went up there.

We walked to the big Asda near us at about 1.30 today. Queued up for about 5-10 minutes to get in. There was plenty of everything we wanted - milk, bread, meat, eggs etc. Tbh I didn't even look for pasta / rice / toilet rolls as we managed to get those last week so I couldn't say how well those were stocked. However everything else was in plentiful supply. Plus lots of staff restocking almost every aisle.

DH went to a large Sainsbury's on Saturday afternoon, no queue and pretty good stock!

He works in the food supply industry and said things are definitely calming down

I think the later the better if you can.

The queue for my Tesco always seems to be the same length. When I went in today they had gone even further and had put lines every 2m that you have to follow around the store. So you can only look at items around your line, no overtaking and no going back if you forget something. Took forever even though I only wanted a couple of essentials as the person in front of me was buying load.

I might try just before closing time next week.

I’ve been going about an hour before closing time and have almost had the shop to myself.