Sainsbury’s wins Portsmouth supermarket mystery shopper survey

The UK’s only island city is unafraid to trade on its maritime roots – naval heritage is everywhere, from the HMS Victory to the Mary Rose – but Portsmouth also offers modern shopping districts, a lively cultural calendar and a youthful population thanks to its university.

The local economy is shaped mainly by maritime industries and tourism, with 70 cruise calls expected this year, though the city’s recent longlisting for UK City of Culture 2029 is triggering growing cultural investment. Coastal, residential neighbourhoods such as Southsea are popular with families and young professionals, while Gunwharf Quays is a modern waterfront development with bars, restaurants, shopping and the architectural centrepiece that is Spinnaker Tower.

The combination of ongoing port redevelopment with cultural investment suggests a city moving upwards, though Portsmouth under-indexes somewhat on the most affluent demographic groups. According to CACI, it over-indexes most for ‘Family Renters’ (26.3% vs a national average of 4.8%) – “younger working families with average incomes living in socially rented terraced or semi-detached houses”.

Some of those families will be found in Farlington, a primarily residential district a few miles from the city centre, where our winning store is located. The 45,191 sq ft Sainsbury’s on Fitzherbert Road took first place with 89 points, an impressive score built on perfect availability.

Our shopper praised the “well-presented”, “modern” store for its “wide, uncluttered aisles”. He found it “easy to browse” throughout the store because “minimal colleagues were stocking the shelves”, although it remained “easy to find a staff member”.

Overall, this was an “easy, stress-free shop”, and our shopper “appreciated another checkout being opened as queues built”.

Four miles south, back towards the city centre, Tesco in Fratton Way took second place with 78 points. Our shopper found the store “quite well stocked”, although it “did have noticeable gaps in the fruit and veg section”.

It performed well on customer service, with staff members “helpful” and quick to step in when help was required. Unfortunately, the store was “swarmed by pickers who got in the way” and “just stopped their trolleys in front of you without a care in the world, blocking the view of the shelf”.

One point back in third was Asda in The Bridge Shopping Centre, just a 15-minute walk east of the city centre. Availability did for the 58,478 sq ft store, with two out-of-stocks and three items not stocked hitting its total score hard. It performed well in most other areas, including a perfect 20 for customer service, with our shopper praising the “really helpful” staff who “could instantly tell me where to find something”.

He also liked the “good offers” and “neatly presented” products and the fact that pickers “kept out of the way of regular shoppers”. Unfortunately, the gluten-free bread section was “a little mixed up” because “a lot of products had been chucked back onto the shelf, presumably by customers”.

Waitrose in Southsea came fourth this week. Comfortably our smallest store at 15,028 sq ft, it had one item out of stock and four more not stocked. This means, even though our shopper visits weekly, the “selection is sometimes limited” and she visits other stores “more regularly”.

The best thing about her shop was “the excellent customer service in the bakery section”, and she noted there “seemed to be a lot of staff around to help” in general. But there was also a “slight untidiness” to proceedings thanks to “unmanned carts” and “some messy, low-stocked or mislabelled shelves”.

Last place went to our most centrally located supermarket, Morrisons in Victory Retail Park, less than half a mile from the city centre. A zero for availability, thanks to two items out of stock and six not stocked, was followed by below-par performance in most areas.

Our shopper said it was not easy to find products and “the flow of items is peculiar” – such as the crisps and soft drinks being very near the front of the store, before the clothing, which is “not where I would expect to find them”.

Navigating the store was “quite difficult” also because of “a lot of pickers” were “stopped in aisles, talking to each other, and [had] just abandoned their picking carts”. However, our shopper did note that “other than avoiding the pickers, it was actually a very quiet and calm atmosphere to shop in”.