Tesco voted best supermarket in affluent High Wycombe mystery shop

Nestled in the Chiltern Hills – a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – High Wycombe offers an attractive mixture of languorous walks, cultural opportunities at the local theatre, and excellent commuter connectivity.

Nearby Hughenden Manor was home to 19th century prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, and the area has continued to attract plenty of well-heeled residents.

High Wycombe over-indexes on the demographic ‘Luxury Lifestyles’ at 12.7% of its 190,000-strong population, compared to a national average of just 3.3%, according to CACI. That plays out in the average weekly grocery spend too, with High Wycombe’s £122.78 ranking ninth in the country.

The nearby village of Loudwater, located 15 minutes’ drive from High Wycombe’s town centre, provided this week’s winner. The 36,880 sq ft superstore on London Road came out on top with 87 points despite a poor showing on availability with one out-of-stock and four items not stocked.

The victory, then, speaks to a superb performance pretty much everywhere else. Our shopper was fulsome about the staff, who were “easy to find” and “put considerable effort into being helpful” when he asked them questions.. “Great work!” he added.

He was equally effusive about the store’s general standards and layout. The latter was “logical, allowing good circulation”, while “shelves weren’t arbitrarily stacked – they looked organised and clean without significant gaps”. The checkouts were “busy but efficient” and he received “great customer service”.

Just two points back in second was the Sainsbury’s on Oxford Road in High Wycombe town centre. The 65,083 sq ft store’s “serves a highly affluent, aspirational audience with strong purchasing power”, according to CACI, and its generous proportions helped seal this week’s joint-best availability score, with just two items not stocked.

It performed best, though, on customer service. Our shopper found all the staff she interacted with “very helpful” and was impressed when they “asked if I would like assistance in choosing alternative products”. She particularly liked the store’s layout, which was “very easy to navigate” and helped the store feel “not overly crowded” despite the shop taking place at peak time on a Saturday morning.

A 15-minute drive to the south, Asda on Holmers Farm Way took third with 72 points. The store was hobbled by the week’s worst availability, with two out-of-stocks and four not-stocked items.

It performed well elsewhere, with our shopper saying she had “generally no negative comments” – although she did note it “could do with a refurb”. Once again, the store performed best on customer service, with our shopper finding all staff “very helpful and friendly” and noting they “did a great job of directing me to the places I needed to find items, including providing me with aisle numbers”. She also enjoyed the “spacious” aisles, which the plentiful online order pickers did a “very good” job of keeping clear, and found the self-checkout staff “were attentive for age-verified products” and generally responsive to customers

Just up the road, located next to the High Wycombe Park & Ride, Waitrose finished fourth with 68 points. Despite being this week’s smallest store, it matched Sainsbury’s as the week’s best performer on availability.

Our shopper loved “the smell of fresh bread cooking” and the “beautiful” counters full of “enticing and gorgeous food”. It’s “what you go to Waitrose for”, she commented.

She did, though, spot “some empty baskets” in the fresh fruit & veg areas and was disappointed to find five restocking trolleys in the first two aisles alone. “I don’t really want to see these or have to navigate my way around them,” she said. There also “weren’t a lot of staff on the shop floor” and two of them were “standing in the middle of an aisle chatting” while brandishing “big trolleys. Our shopper’s verdict? “Not a good look.”.

Last place this week went to Morrisons at Temple End, just north of the town centre. Its score of 60 points reflected a disappointing performance in most areas, with our shopper lamenting its “jumbled” layout, which led to “everyone wandering around looking for things because it’s poorly organised”. It led to the shop taking “a very long time”.

She also spotted “lots of broken fridges and freezers” and felt the store was “poorly stocked, with lots of empty spaces. Her abiding memory of the store was it being “dark” and “battling to find things”.