Sainsbury’s and Asda in talks to merge

yes, that's why people have found it funny etc.. that is why it was interesting for them to release the clip

I just think it was an bit off, given that he's not actually giving the interview at that point... but I guess there are plenty of cases where journalists have decided that stuff picked up while someone was still wired up to a mic or getting ready for an interview is fair game
It was good enough to snare Gordon Brown, good enough for him I guess, at least such unguarded revelations tell us what such types are actually thinking instead of them expecting us to believe the political or corporate spiel.
 
I think you are reading a bit too much into it - could just as easily be purely coincidence it was stuck in his head at that moment.
 
Asda has them too, you be surprised how much supermarkets loose when people don't scan all their shopping on self service and walk off.

It's there for that reason.

They also have guards for a reason, but i guess mostly they're there to stop obvious thievery and thuggery.
 
It was good enough to snare Gordon Brown, good enough for him I guess, at least such unguarded revelations tell us what such types are actually thinking instead of them expecting us to believe the political or corporate spiel.

Dude lighten up, like seriously, your hatred is clouding your judgement
 
Dude lighten up, like seriously, your hatred is clouding your judgement
Hatred? - my hatred for large supermarket groups isn’t exclusive to Asda & Sainsbury’s I assure you. :p

It’s obvious the media would pick up on such a thing - it’s still on radio 5 this morning - you’d have thought the head of such a large organisation would be a little more media savvy and had the common sense not to do such a thing.

Alas though, the higher up the corporate ladder people go the more common sense appears to desert them.
 
Well we have a medium size Asda and medium size Sainsbury both within about a mile from where we live. Will be interesting to see if both survive. I definitely prefer shopping at Sainsbury to Asda who I normally rate below Tesco, only use for top up shopping or main shopping if CBA to go to Tesco. Also wondering whether the merger will drive up quality in Asda (their fruit and veg often rancid) or push Sainsbury down a bit. Can also see this as a perfect excuse to dump Nectar, even though it's not worth much these days.
 
Kings Heath has a Asda and Sainsbury's within 450m of each other. The Asda is just dire to be honest. I do go to the Sainsbury's a bit not so much now but I usually go Saturday morning after I've been the pet shop and it's terrible. They have 1 main till open and the place is crawling with pensioners takes longer to pay for the food than it does to get stuff off the shelf. When it's quieter it's usually alright but hard to predict if it'll be quiet or not.

Shirley has 2 massive stores about 1km from each other. Never been to the Asda there and only the Sainsbury's once. The Asda just makes me think people in their PJs will be in.

Mainly shop in Tesco now, maybe pop into Lidl after the pet shop but mostly it's Tesco. The hand scanners are the main attraction! :D
 
As an ex sainsburys worker of 9 years I have to say that I did not see that coming. As far as I was aware sainsburys has always pitched it's stall as the big 4s upmarket choice so to pair with what I'm sure is seen by many as the poor man's choice I'm not sure is the best idea.

When I did my management training we had all sorts of courses to do and one of them talked about the power and importance of perception, we were told how sainsburys frequently performed worse than it's budget competitors in surveys, despite being a demonstrably better experience on paper, because sainsburys own marketing simply encouraged people to expect more. Sainsburys promise the price of the big 4 with a Marks and Spencer experience and the reality does not bear that out.

I can see how this merger might affect people's choice of where to shop if they feel quality slips in any way and let's be honest sainsburys is going down the pan, it's had half a dozen management restructures since I left, quality is poorer on fruit and veg, shelves are beginning to look like they did after their failed attempt at warehouse automation in the 90s (bare) and the quality of staffing is appalling, I see staff doing things all the time that I would have been reprimanded for, when you actually see a member of staff that is.

I can only see that getting worse after a merger with asda, might finally push me to tesco :eek:
 
The end is nigh? :p

Sainsburys wants some of this discounter action that is stealing market share but it doesn't suit their image. On the other hand Asda is already known for going for the bottom end...

Worst case scenario Sainsburys vanishes and you do your food transactions with whoever replaces them.
 
Saw a Safeway local/mccolls today, I thought Safeway was totally dead after Morrison buy out?
Or is this Morrison trying to get corner shops but as mccolls is a rip off merchant they didn't want to use Morrison branding.

Edit-

McColls, the convenience shop chain, has signed a new supply deal with Morrisons in a move that will resurrect the Safeway brand and spell further trouble for wholesalers Palmer & Harvey and Nisa.

The move means that McColls, which has 1,300 convenience shops and 350 newsagents across the country, will be exclusively supplied with around 400 Safeway own-brand products. The chain will also benefit from Morrisons' fresh food offer, including its bakery and sandwiches, as well as the Bradford-based supermarket's purchasing power with consumer giants such as Dove-soap maker Unilever and Ariel washing powder producer Procter & Gamble.

Sounds like let's "lie" to our customers as it's to expensive for our main brand.
 
First time I went to ALDI, that was the etiquette that the cashier told me. So it means fast scanning, into the trolley, then load up my backpack at the packing bay by the windows. It means that the customer turnover is quick and you're typically not queuing for as long as you would at other supermarkets. Plus, they are quick at opening new lanes if the lanes are full. You just look out for which lanes are lit green or red when approaching them and listen out for PA announcements. I find it easy and that's me partially hearing and partially sighted.

So how is a mother with 2 toddlers expected to do this? I've never seen anyone throw everything back in the trolley to pack somewhere else. What a daft idea. How about just open proper checkouts that have space for more than a packet of crisps.

Its one of the things that knarks me off about Aldi and Lidl.
 
Well a large checkout means taking up more floorspace, requiring more staff to man the slower processing checkouts.

Sure it's less stressful on customers but it costs and neither aldi or lidl can see the profit in doing that.
 
So how is a mother with 2 toddlers expected to do this? I've never seen anyone throw everything back in the trolley to pack somewhere else. What a daft idea. How about just open proper checkouts that have space for more than a packet of crisps.

Its one of the things that knarks me off about Aldi and Lidl.
This is common in Aldi/Lidl although not everyone does it. It's why they have the big deal along the windows.
 
I haven't been to an ASDA in years, there own brand stuff is so dire. There's a pretty huge ASDA and Sainsbury's in Romford so i guess they'll just shut the ASDA and it'll become something else.
 
I haven't been to an ASDA in years, there own brand stuff is so dire. There's a pretty huge ASDA and Sainsbury's in Romford so i guess they'll just shut the ASDA and it'll become something else.

They've said there will be no job cuts, so store closures shouldn't be happening. Especially with both individual brands still maintaining their names.
 
I don't really buy own brand stuff, only brand named stuff that I like. So for me they're all the same anyway. Not sure how a supermarket is somehow 'upmarket.' :p It's just a warehouse where you buy stuff.
 
They've said there will be no job cuts, so store closures shouldn't be happening. Especially with both individual brands still maintaining their names.

Cadbury's said there wasn't going to be any job losses either. Look what happened.
 
Cadbury's said there wasn't going to be any job losses either. Look what happened.
It's a completely different scenario though. There was obviously enough demand for both an ASDA and Sainsburys in these places where they are nearby otherwise one would have already closed down. The customers of one of the two shops aren't just going to disappear into thin air when the merger happens!
 
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