Supermarkets discussion

[Mcr Warrior]

Wonder if you can buy 'Tesco lemons' at Asda? Thought not!

 

[DoubleLemon]

Wonder if you can buy 'Tesco lemons' at Asda? Thought not!

I assume you are being sarcastic as its a massive fail in ux and a poor user journey.

 

[stadler]

Noticed this on the fruit and veg scales at Asda earlier. Most of the items start with the word “Asda” meaning that, when you sort by A-Z, most things are in the A section.

What an awful design. I think everyone knows that they are buying Asda fruits and vegetables. Parsnips also appear twice on the screen.

 

[jon0844]

I assume you are being sarcastic as its a massive fail in ux and a poor user journey.

I think the point is that Asda doesn't need to say Asda as it's clear you won't be getting items from any other supermarket there.

 

[GusB]

Wonder if you can buy 'Tesco lemons' at Asda? Thought not!

You'd be surprised!

With loose produce it's not a major issue but pre-packed items with branded packaging do occasionally get delivered to the wrong place, especially if you have a manufacturer that supplies multiple supermarkets. When I was at the Co-op, the sandwich supplier quite often delivered the wrong thing and it wasn't unknown for British Bakeries to send the occasional wrongly-branded loaf!

 

[jon0844]

You'd be surprised!

With loose produce it's not a major issue but pre-packed items with branded packaging do occasionally get delivered to the wrong place, especially if you have a manufacturer that supplies multiple supermarkets. When I was at the Co-op, the sandwich supplier quite often delivered the wrong thing and it wasn't unknown for British Bakeries to send the occasional wrongly-branded loaf!

Yes, I've seen photos online of stores receiving stock intended for another retailer (e.g. milk). But I guess they don't put them out on the shelves. Perhaps for fresh produce they can get away with it.

 

[route101]

Yes, I've seen photos online of stores receiving stock intended for another retailer (e.g. milk). But I guess they don't put them out on the shelves. Perhaps for fresh produce they can get away with it.

Worked in a Sainsburys a while back and one of my colleagues was restocking the milk, turns out the milk was Asda branded!

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Have now started to see Tesco-branded products on sale at 'One Stop' convenience stores, which I think is a change of policy. 'One Stop' are a subsidiary of Tesco, albeit one which has previously been run as a stand-alone operation.

 

[stadler]

Have now started to see Tesco-branded products on sale at 'One Stop' convenience stores, which I think is a change of policy. 'One Stop' are a subsidiary of Tesco, albeit one which has previously been run as a stand-alone operation.

I have also noticed a lot of One Stop stores have been converted to Tesco Express stores in the past few years. I am aware of four of them in the South East England area so far and there are probably others. I wonder if Tesco plan to get rid of the One Stop brand eventually. Tesco now have five convenience shop brands (Budgens / Family Shopper / Londis / One Stop / Premier) so maybe they are trying to simplify it.

 

[Kite159]

Have now started to see Tesco-branded products on sale at 'One Stop' convenience stores, which I think is a change of policy. 'One Stop' are a subsidiary of Tesco, albeit one which has previously been run as a stand-alone operation.

I can recall buying Tesco branded sandwiches from a 'one stop' to the north of Northampton a couple of years ago when heading towards the old railway line path to Market H so it's nothing new.

 

[jon0844]

Tesco is trialling a Tesco Express Lite concept I believe. Won't be called that externally but will have a more limited line of stock.

Premier stores now have more Tesco branded goods so I guess it would make sense to standardise the store branding, although I wonder how it will work with staffing. Our Premier store is run quite haphazardly with staffing arrangements and I assume Tesco would require a certain standard of training, uniform and pay etc.

 

[dgl]

Talking about wrongly branded items being delivered, I got some free milk in a local morrisons once because they had been giver coop milk by accident.
They obviously couldn't sell it so they were asking if anyone wanted it for free.

 

[SuspectUsual]

When I was at the Co-op, the sandwich supplier quite often delivered the wrong thing and it wasn't unknown for British Bakeries to send the occasional wrongly-branded loaf!

The two categories (apart from hyper local stuff) that go direct to store at Coop rather than via their depots

Premier stores now have more Tesco branded goods so I guess it would make sense to standardise the store branding, although I wonder how it will work with staffing. Our Premier store is run quite haphazardly with staffing arrangements and I assume Tesco would require a certain standard of training, uniform and pay etc.

Premier is a franchise operation so it can be more difficult for the brand owner to exert proper control over store standards

 

[takno]

The two categories (apart from hyper local stuff) that go direct to store at Coop rather than via their depots

That certainly would be more of a factor, but we definitely had bags of Coop-branded frozen chicken sometimes at Iceland when I worked there, and the outside of the box was labelled right, so I doubt the depot would have been able to stop it.

 

[SuspectUsual]

That certainly would be more of a factor, but we definitely had bags of Coop-branded frozen chicken sometimes at Iceland when I worked there, and the outside of the box was labelled right, so I doubt the depot would have been able to stop it.

If the depot are going to stop something it’ll be on intake. But even then, if the barcode scanned as expected they’d probably let it in.

You might catch an error when the pallet is replenished from storage into a pick face but that’s not guaranteed

On outbound, in Coop depots the pickers wear headsets for instructions rather than carrying a scanner, and the instruction is basically to go to a location, read back a check digit that confirms they’re in the right place, pick the number of boxes they’re told, and ask for the next instruction.

There’s no verification of the product - doing this would add very little in terms of pick quality but would cost a fortune in time and therefore wages. Even three seconds to scan and get a confirmation would cost loads given they do about over a hundred million cases a year

 

[londonbridge]

I’ve worked in a depot as well as stores, so when stores receive roll cages that have damaged wheels, are poorly stacked, or have only a few items that could have been condensed into another cage before being sent out, I’ve seen exactly how those situations can occur. It’s seventeen years now since I worked in the depot picking stock, and obviously systems may now be more automated, but it was surprisingly easy to pick the wrong item.

Basically you had a sheet of stickers which told you the product location within the warehouse, the description and the number required, so for three of the same item you would have three stickers. You would go to the location, pick the product and put it in the roll cages, then move on to the next one. Sometimes you’d find yourself picking up the product from the location either side of the one you actually needed, and sometimes the wrong product would be in the location, either because the location had been replenished with a whole pallet of the wrong product, or some of the product from the location ‘next door’ had fallen into the location you were picking from, and some of the pickers would just take whatever was there without looking at what they were picking up and checking that it was the product they wanted.

The way I worked it was to glance at the location and description, and think “B23, toothpaste”, go to the location, glance at the item I’d picked up and think “that’s not toothpaste”, then see that I’d picked from the location next door, put back what I’d picked, pick up the correct one and think “THIS is toothpaste”.

 

[GusB]

I’ve worked in a depot as well as stores, so when stores receive roll cages that have damaged wheels, are poorly stacked, or have only a few items that could have been condensed into another cage before being sent out, I’ve seen exactly how those situations can occur. It’s seventeen years now since I worked in the depot picking stock, and obviously systems may now be more automated, but it was surprisingly easy to pick the wrong item.

Basically you had a sheet of stickers which told you the product location within the warehouse, the description and the number required, so for three of the same item you would have three stickers. You would go to the location, pick the product and put it in the roll cages, then move on to the next one. Sometimes you’d find yourself picking up the product from the location either side of the one you actually needed, and sometimes the wrong product would be in the location, either because the location had been replenished with a whole pallet of the wrong product, or some of the product from the location ‘next door’ had fallen into the location you were picking from, and some of the pickers would just take whatever was there without looking at what they were picking up and checking that it was the product they wanted.

The way I worked it was to glance at the location and description, and think “B23, toothpaste”, go to the location, glance at the item I’d picked up and think “that’s not toothpaste”, then see that I’d picked from the location next door, put back what I’d picked, pick up the correct one and think “THIS is toothpaste”.

When I worked in Safeway, cross-picks* were dealt with differently depending on what the product was. If the product delivered was one that we actually stocked, the stock level of that product was adjusted upwards, with a corresponding downward adjustment for the product that wasn't received. If we didn't stock that particular line, we were then supposed to arrange an uplift and have it sent back to the depot. It was nearly 30 years ago now, but I recall that it was quite a convoluted process.

When I got to the Co-op a few years later, I recall being told by a manager "good luck with organising an uplift"! It was usually a case of finding a gap for the thing that was delivered and trying to get it sold.

* when the item delivered doesn't match the "picking label"

 

[Hadders]

I’ve worked in a depot as well as stores, so when stores receive roll cages that have damaged wheels, are poorly stacked, or have only a few items that could have been condensed into another cage before being sent out, I’ve seen exactly how those situations can occur. It’s seventeen years now since I worked in the depot picking stock, and obviously systems may now be more automated, but it was surprisingly easy to pick the wrong item.

Basically you had a sheet of stickers which told you the product location within the warehouse, the description and the number required, so for three of the same item you would have three stickers. You would go to the location, pick the product and put it in the roll cages, then move on to the next one. Sometimes you’d find yourself picking up the product from the location either side of the one you actually needed, and sometimes the wrong product would be in the location, either because the location had been replenished with a whole pallet of the wrong product, or some of the product from the location ‘next door’ had fallen into the location you were picking from, and some of the pickers would just take whatever was there without looking at what they were picking up and checking that it was the product they wanted.

The way I worked it was to glance at the location and description, and think “B23, toothpaste”, go to the location, glance at the item I’d picked up and think “that’s not toothpaste”, then see that I’d picked from the location next door, put back what I’d picked, pick up the correct one and think “THIS is toothpaste”.

Picking labels haven't been a thing for years. It's all voice pick or handset driven these days. There are several dofferent types of picking system but in a 'stock held' system (i.e. traditional warehouse with stock picked at ground level and reserve slots bove) the system directs the picker to the pick slot, they confirm they're at the pick slot by speaking the check digits on the pick slot or scanning the barcode on the pick slot, then they're told how many cases to pick.

Examples of what can go wrong:

- Picker doesn't pick what's in the pick slot (easy to pick something from an adjacent slot)
- Wrong item has been put into the pick slot
- Incorrect item has been sent by the supplier - this should be picked up at inbound but sometimes it slips through

For stores it's frustrating when a cage of stock arrives with a few items on it. This can happen because:

- Stock from different sections of the warehouse is picked by different pickers for efficiency reasons. So if a store only orders a few items from a section then you get a cage of stock with not much on it!
- The warehouse management system controls what gets picked into each cage so they don't end up over weight. Cages containing a few items can be consolidated but this is a manual process and there's a risk of cages ending up over weight
- Many retailers don't stock the full range of goods in every warehouse. Often slower selling lines are stored in a 'national' depot where these lines are picked and transhipped via a local depot for onward delivery to the store. Again, this sometimes means you end up with a small number of items on a cage.

 

[dgl]

All this talk about wrong deliveries mirrors my experience with linen deliveries at work.
No we don't want king size covers instead of double covers, double sheets instead of single sheets or large single covers that are basically double covers. Also don't just assume that we have plenty of linen in stock and when we say otherwise just say you've got nothing to give us.
Plus when we give you a linen count, and we tell you it's a count of what we have, it's most definatly not what we want delivered!, when we have no pillow cases in stock we might like some on the next delivery!

 

[SuspectUsual]

For stores it's frustrating when a cage of stock arrives with a few items on it. This can happen because:

- Stock from different sections of the warehouse is picked by different pickers for efficiency reasons. So if a store only orders a few items from a section then you get a cage of stock with not much on it!
- The warehouse management system controls what gets picked into each cage so they don't end up over weight. Cages containing a few items can be consolidated but this is a manual process and there's a risk of cages ending up over weight
- Many retailers don't stock the full range of goods in every warehouse. Often slower selling lines are stored in a 'national' depot where these lines are picked and transhipped via a local depot for onward delivery to the store. Again, this sometimes means you end up with a small number of items on a cage.

Part cages were a big frustration when I was at Coop, for all the reasons you give. We did look briefly at trying to improve the situation but it really is difficult to solve.

- part cages arriving at the delivery depot from different picking depots could be consolidated but it costs time and money and risks errors being made

- part cages from the same depot are almost always different temperatures so can’t be consolidayed

- part cages could have additional stock added to the store order to fill it out, but at the end of the day by definition it’s stuff the store doesn’t need and for Coop especially, operating in generally small stores, there’s precious little backup space as it is

In the end we limited ourselves to consolidating only when there was very, very little in a part cage

 

[Hadders]

Part cages were a big frustration when I was at Coop, for all the reasons you give. We did look briefly at trying to improve the situation but it really is difficult to solve.

- part cages arriving at the delivery depot from different picking depots could be consolidated but it costs time and money and risks errors being made

- part cages from the same depot are almost always different temperatures so can’t be consolidayed

- part cages could have additional stock added to the store order to fill it out, but at the end of the day by definition it’s stuff the store doesn’t need and for Coop especially, operating in generally small stores, there’s precious little backup space as it is

In the end we limited ourselves to consolidating only when there was very, very little in a part cage

Consolidation is normally only ever done for vehicle fill reasons, eg 48 cages will fit on to the vehicle but there are 50 cages to go to the store. Two cages with a small volume of stock will be consolidated. While it makes perfect sense to do this, it's not without problems either.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Have the Co-op's stock replenishment processes been hit by the recent cyber attack? Just visited three of their stores in the Greater Manchester area and there's a lot of empty shelves .
(Co-op staff using the opportunity to give them a bit of a clean).

 

[SuspectUsual]

Have the Co-op's stock replenishment processes been hit by the recent cyber attack? Just visited three of their stores in the Greater Manchester area and there's a lot of empty shelves .
(Co-op staff using the opportunity to give them a bit of a clean).

Yes, badly

As I understand it (but I'm no longer working there so can't be sure) they've had to turn off their automated supplier ordering as they cut all electronic / system links with the outside world, and are gradually adding them back when they can. Obviously this will affect bread and sandwiches first (they are direct to store delivered order day +1; then the rest of fresh (no depot stock, delivered to store the evening of the day after order or the second morning). Where there is depot stock (ambient and frozen) the store impact will depend on the depth of stock cover at the time things were turned off

 

[Gloster]

An annoying one from my local mini-supermarket. If there is only one person at the tills and they are serving somebody with a lot of shopping, should a number of other customers appear and start queuing most of the staff wait until the very end of the transaction (when they hand over the receipt) before ringing the bell to summon another cashier. The bell is by their thigh and it would only take a second during a pause in the transaction to push it. But no, the rest of us have to wait while the shopper rearranges their shopping, discusses which packet of cigarettes to buy, chooses a scratch cards, digs out a lotto form from the depths of their bag, asks the price of some of the gin bottles behind the counter and then searches through their wallet. I have heard that this may be policy as it is considered rude to do something else while serving, but really…

Personally, I wonder if it is another thing intended to get us to use the card self-service tills. Not in my village they won’t…

 

[jon0844]

Meanwhile customers often stand at a check out on their phone totally ignoring the staff member scanning items and waiting to be paid.

 

[3rd rail land]

Meanwhile customers often stand at a check out on their phone totally ignoring the staff member scanning items and waiting to be paid.

They should be bagging the items as the cashier is scanning them. This isn't America where someone does it for you. I suppose in these situations the person on their phone finally bags everything after all the items are scanned, the cashier is waiting for payment and the queue is being unnecessarily held up

 

[Bald Rick]

Have the Co-op's stock replenishment processes been hit by the recent cyber attack? Just visited three of their stores in the Greater Manchester area and there's a lot of empty shelves .
(Co-op staff using the opportunity to give them a bit of a clean).

Yes, and the co-ops ive been in this week have had lots of bare shelves, especially chilled stuff. However the one i was in an hour ago had dozens of roll cages on the floor and colleagues stacking away!

 

[londonbridge]

Picking labels haven't been a thing for years. It's all voice pick or handset driven these days. There are several dofferent types of picking system but in a 'stock held' system (i.e. traditional warehouse with stock picked at ground level and reserve slots bove) the system directs the picker to the pick slot, they confirm they're at the pick slot by speaking the check digits on the pick slot or scanning the barcode on the pick slot, then they're told how many cases to pick.

Examples of what can go wrong:

- Picker doesn't pick what's in the pick slot (easy to pick something from an adjacent slot)
- Wrong item has been put into the pick slot
- Incorrect item has been sent by the supplier - this should be picked up at inbound but sometimes it slips through

For stores it's frustrating when a cage of stock arrives with a few items on it. This can happen because:

- Stock from different sections of the warehouse is picked by different pickers for efficiency reasons. So if a store only orders a few items from a section then you get a cage of stock with not much on it!
- The warehouse management system controls what gets picked into each cage so they don't end up over weight. Cages containing a few items can be consolidated but this is a manual process and there's a risk of cages ending up over weight
- Many retailers don't stock the full range of goods in every warehouse. Often slower selling lines are stored in a 'national' depot where these lines are picked and transhipped via a local depot for onward delivery to the store. Again, this sometimes means you end up with a small number of items on a cage.

As I said it’s seventeen years since I left the depot, so I appreciate things have changed. When it came to part cages, beside the picking labels you would have between one and four larger destination labels with the store number and name, which indicated how many cages you were meant to use. On the sheet of picking labels you would also have “end cube” stickers which told you when you were supposed to start using the next cage. I woukd be on the third cage, reach the end cube and then find the fourth cage had three or four items, which is when I would consolidate them. End cube labels were also a source of picking errors where we would find cages with , say, four units of an item when there were only meant to be three because the picker had stuck the end cube label on one of them.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Have the Co-op's stock replenishment processes been hit by the recent cyber attack? Just visited three of their stores in the Greater Manchester area and there's a lot of empty shelves .
(Co-op staff using the opportunity to give them a bit of a clean).

I jave just been to the Co-op store in Heald Green this morning and whole sections of certain food items were completely missing.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Consolidation is normally only ever done for vehicle fill reasons, eg 48 cages will fit on to the vehicle but there are 50 cages to go to the store. Two cages with a small volume of stock will be consolidated. While it makes perfect sense to do this, it's not without problems either.

Depends on your WMS and its functionality. Coop use Manhattan and there's functionality to "nest" one cage and its contents inside another so you can physical consolidate the contents of two cages but only have to scan two barcodes to do it systemically. (This functionality is required for the cigs and tobacco operation, where the fags are picked into tote boxes in a secure area, and then the tote is scanned into the first cage of the main pick). The problem comes when the bloke doing it forgets the scans, so the system believes there's a cage in the warehouse that should have been despatched but physically it doesn't exist any more.....

(Equally, they have "phantom cage" issues on despatch - Manhattan requires the outgoing cage to be scanned onto the vehicle, but loaders have a habit of loading them two or three at a time but not scanning all of them, because its a bit quicker and it means they can beat they work standard. The process is scan one, load one, repeat, and the fix to drive compliance would be implementing a minimum time between cage scans of about 10 seconds to negate the perceived benefit of loading multiple cages at a time, but when I left it was on a very lengthy "things we should do" list)