Cavity wall construction

[dennis]

Are they that bad?

[Doctor Evil]

More Little Miiddle England petty snobery. Aldi, Netto and Lidl are all of the same type and format, and all from three differnt countries. They pile em hign and sell em cheap. Their goods are decent quality, with many known brands, and just plain cheaper than the main suopermarkets.

The Continentals do the bulk of their shopping at these types of places and go to the big names where the Lidles don't fill the gap. These three cheap supermarkets have not realy taken off in the UK, getting better though, and the reason was of pure petty snobbery. Why go to Tesco when these places sell the same far cheaper? But most people here do not and petty snobbery was the reason when research was done.

[Mike]

Because Tesco have everything (well almost) in stock and at the same price as these other places

Somehow I don't think one can accuse Tesco of snobbery. Their corporate motto is to sell everything to everybofy everywhere or something like that.

Now Waitrose, Sainsburys, ......

[Doctor Evil]

To an indoctrinated Little Middle Englander, I suppose yes. To normal people, no.

[Doctor Evil]

I beg to differ.

Tesco have three tiers of products to appeal to all class types.

And Marks and Sparks.

[Andy Hall]

Yes. Dreadful places, in the same mould as Aldi, Netto etc. selling only on price.

[Andy Hall]

Nonsense. Been to France lately?

No it wasn't. People vote with their feet based on quality, price and choice. Clearly the formula of these places is missing or they would be popular.

Choice?

When did you do this "research"?

[Andy Hall]

What on earth ware you talking about? Do you really believe that people choose products and where to shop based on "class"?

Thinking about it..... yes I expect that you do....

Good stores if you like buying prepared foods....

[Doctor Evil]

Not so in Little Middle England. You should know.

They sell most of foods the major supermarkets sell., and all good quality too.

[Doctor Evil]

That is what Tesco found, and that is one of the reasons for their immense success.

[Andy Hall]

Price points certainly... but "class"?

Where is the correlation?

[Andy Hall]

Same products? Same brands? or own brands?

[Mike]

Not quite 'class' in the classic use, but apparently Tesco analyse every purchase made using their clubcard and found a correlation between the Tesco brands - Finest, Standard and Value and the ABC.../123whatever bands people are divided into. Stock on individual stores can thus be tuned to the type of people coming through the door. The offer vouchers posted out are also apparently tuned to the recipient, presumably enough to attract them to return and make extra purchases without discounting their normal weekly shop.

[Andy Hall]

Exactly, and that was my point.

The socio-economic groups with letter and number systems. Originally, these were divided according to occupation and increasingly the marketeers found them to be too generalistic. For example, somebody in one of the "professional" groups may not have the spending power of somebody in a managerial group and so on and correlations were poor. Somebody in a skilled occupation might well have sufficient spending power to buy the better products and so on.

It's no longer a traditional class thing in marketing, any more than it is in society as a whole. People's buying habits are not that attached to their occupation or class of occupation for a whole variety of reasons.

This is one of the main reasons why the supermarkets have gone for these loyalty schemes - the statistical data from the traditional methods simply was not accurate enough.

That's certainly true, but I don't think that it has anything to do with "class", but rather the shopping habits and disposable income of the customers, and in the case of prepared foods, age range as well. Busy people with larger disposable incomes are more likely to buy the better products, for example.

I've never joined any of the supermarket loyalty schemes because I tend to shop in at least 4 different ones plus other shops and every

1-2 days rather than weekly, preferring to go for fresh (or as close to fresh as can be obtained) rather than prepared foods.

However, it's very obvious which stores are more successful at tuning the contents of the shelves to meet their customer buying habits. As you say, Tesco are quite good at that, and I think that Sainsbury, Waitrose and M&S are for their customer bases. I've noted that Morrisons have come badly unstuck with their acquisition of Safeway by assuming that one size fits all regionally.

[Stuart Noble]

Sounds prejudiced and, dare I say it, class based. Our Aldi is the cleanest, most spacious, and relaxing of all the supermarkets apart from possibly Waitrose. At Lidl's you do have to climb over pallets occasionally but, as a reward, the quality of most of their the food is IME well above average. Their fruit and veg is always fresh but stock levels are unpredictable (just like proper greengrocers). The check-out (usually singular) is not for the faint hearted though.

[Andy Hall]

No, on both counts. My exact point was that this isn't a "class" issue in the traditional sense of the word.

I only make comments based on what I have personally seen, unless I make it clear that it is otherwise.

I've visited all three of these places at various times (two times each and in different places). I don't regard climbing over pallets as acceptable and found product quality mediochre at best.

Presentation is important. The large hypermarkets in France manage it without problems.

Poor quality/inadequate checkouts are unacceptable always.

I agree with you that shopping at Waitrose is quite pleasant, although choice not always large and emphasis too much on prepared foods as with all supermarkets.

[Doctor Evil]

A mixture just like the supermarkets. They just don't present as flash as the main supermarkets.

[Doctor Evil]

That is true. A flyer in a working class area is different to one in a middle class area from the same shop.

[Doctor Evil]

You have missed it. A flyer aimed the council estate will be generalistic and will not have a large section on wine but concentrate on cheap beer and value foods. The working class wife will go to Tosco maybe see a nice bottle of wine for fathers day and buy it, with out have to change shops. Tosco have managed what others thought impossible in that they attract all class of people into one shop.

The man who took them from near disappearing in the 1980s with a cheap image, was a Mr Lehey (sp), who was European businessman of the year a few years ago, who is an Everton fan and that is why the Tesco bags are blue and white. He was brought up on a council estate in Liverpool, which many attribute to his understanding a greater range of people than the typical blinkered upper middle class management type. More amazing facts presented by Doctor Evil.

[Doctor Evil]

I too have found they lack enough checkout staff at the three European cheap supermarkets. Aldi tend to have wide aisles. None of them take credit card, only debits cards to keep prices low.