In an interview on Radio 4’s You & Yours this lunchtime Asda’s Andy Clarke mentioned that one of the things that they are doing to help customers in these hard times was to adjust their price points to end in nice round pounds or 50 pences. Makes it easier to add up the total as you go round filling up your trolley, saves nasty embarrassing surprises at the checkout.
Not entirely new news – Asda announced themselves as Britain’s biggest £ store more than three years ago.
Christmas food shopping was odd this year – Asda was the only supermarket that seemed really busy on Christmas Eve, with long queues being marshalled at the checkouts to avoid disputes about priority. The big Sainsbury’s I had gone to just after lunchtime, while busy (the first tail back for ages caused by those trying to get into their car park), had plenty left on the shelves, as people seemed to be mainly just popping in for a few bits & bobs. The only thing I couldn’t get was butcher’s sausages; perishables such vegetables & cream were no problem at all.
Saturday afternoon had been surprisingly quiet in the food stores – but then heavy rain had been forecast.
By contrast the Friday before Christmas was busy everywhere in town.
I don’t know if many people braved the shops on Sunday in an effort to cram all their food shopping into the six hours allowed by law. We preferred to take the chance of baked beans for Christmas dinner to joining in that kind of scrum.
Related posts
Magic number
Does the left hand know
Coining it
