In a week of fresh produce shortages and tired Friday service, Waitrose Formby stood out from the crowd. It scored 74 points thanks to excellent service and better availability than rivals.
Three stores scored zero on availability in a week marred by shortages: Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. Six items were out of stock at Tesco, while five were out of stock at Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.
By contrast, Waitrose only had two items out of stock – and its fruit & veg section was described as “attractive and relatively well stocked”.
Waitrose also excelled on shop floor service, scoring full marks. Staff were “numerous”, immaculately turned out and wearing name badges.
Although they were diligently restocking and rearranging displays, when asked for help, staff left their tasks and escorted our shopper to the item. They were “a credit to the company”, said our shopper.
On the tills too, staff provided an excellent service. While there were only four tills open, the store was not too busy – and our shopper was guided by staff to the one with the shortest queue, meaning they only had to wait for a minute.
The checkout assistant “could not be faulted”, offering a friendly and efficient service.
Second-placed Tesco Knowle scored 56 points. Despite its poor show on availability, the branch had the best score on store standards this week. The “attractive entrance” featured displays that left plenty of space to navigate. Overall, the store came across as clean, “tidy and well managed”.
Asda’s Woking store was third with 48 points. It fared best of the big four on availability, scoring four points – and was the only retailer to have the baby plum tomatoes on the shelves.
Staff were “polite”and happy to help our shopper. One went to the stockroom to bring out an entire box of breadsticks, which was “very helpful”.
However, service on the shop floor was hard to find. While there were plenty of staff in some aisles, there were none available in the others.
There was a very long queue at the tills, only one of which was open for trolleys. Our shopper waited eight or nine minutes with six people in front of him.
The checkout assistant was “very friendly, quick and made small talk”, but both tills continued to gain long queues as our shopper was served.
In fourth-placed Morrisons Newcastle-under-Lyme, the fruit & veg department had huge gaps, with “no tomatoes of any description” – though there were plenty of turnips.
These issues were compounded by staff being difficult to locate – partly due to their black uniforms and a lack of name badges.
Only two members of staff appeared available on the shop floor. One was helpful, taking our shopper to the correct section. However, the other staff member was not very knowledgeable about locations, and told our shopper to go to the wrong aisle for one product.
Availability was also a sore point for last-placed Sainsbury’s Marlow, which scored just 33 points. It suffered from massive gaps and empty shelves in the fruit & veg section.
Shop floor service wasn’t much better. Our shopper had to go out of her way to find staff, who turned out to be of average helpfulness.
Staff had also not replenished shelves or tidied the store, which made it look messy. The store in general was “tired and dated” and on first impressions, our shopper found it “cluttered and rather gloomy”.
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