Monday at Lidl

[Dave Liquorice]

Sold where as laundry bags? Can't say I've noticed laundry bags but then I've not been looking I shall next shopping trip though. Thanks for the tip.

[Dave Liquorice]

There isn't any product placement on Football First... Background advertsiing and sponsers is a little different.

On Emm quite a bit of time is used moving some of the product placement out of shot, like the sound Land Rover... Any way the supplier is "paying" for that product placement by providing the product rather than the production having to pay a supplier for it. Blatant PP is normally picked up by the PA and how something is picked up "adjusted" to reduce or even eliminate it.

[Andy Hall]

Yes, but then I'd have to go into a Lidl store. After previous experiences, that's something I would have difficulty bringing myself to do.

[Andy Hall]

it isn't simplistic at all. As I said, I was taking into account all of the factors and not just the price tag.

They would only care about that if they were losing market share, not growing revenues in the way that they would like, or were encountering unacceptable channel conflict that meant that their premium channels switched to other manufacturers.

That is the common rule of distribution. If they can sell product at an acceptable margin through non-prime channels without damaging their main ones, then it's a simple enough business decision.

[Andy Hall]

A better one would be wipers that work well enough to keep the windscreen clear and don't require the driver to stop and get out every

100 metres to wipe the screen, thus getting wet and running the risk of being run over.

[Dave Liquorice]

Only if said packers can pack neatly and sensibly not just bung the nearest bit of produce into a bag until it's full then dump it in the trolly. So things that a squishable, like bread, doesn't end up at the bottom of the trolly under a bag full of tins. All the chilled/dairy stu= ff is in it's bag, fruit & veg (correctly ordered squishables on top) in another etc. Bottles tins, stood/stacked within a bag.

This is how I pack and unless the checkout person is really zapping the =

stuff through I'm not keeping others waiting. Even then I have my paymen= t card ready and the time the card takes to authorise allows me to catch u= p.

It's the ones that wait until there is a good stack of goods waiting for= bagging before starting to pack and then can't open the freebie bag and =

then have to find their purse/wallet to find payment after the checkout =

operator has told them the total, with 50% of the good still unpacked th= at get my goat.

I quite like the =A310 to =A315 I get back every so often. Vouchers are = rarely used as they tend to be things we don't buy and wouldn't.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dave Plowman (News)" saying something like:

I make it easier than that. I take two banana boxes, one just the right size to fit inside the other, and place them in the bottom of the trolley. Come checkout time the unloaded trolley is wheeled to the top, the banana boxes seperated and then loaded sequentially inside the trolley, one for freezer stuff, one for non-freezer. The bulk of the stuff fits into the two boxes and is much handier for loading into the car and unloading at home. No farrfing around with legions of carrier bags. I do keep a stock of bags in the car boot as needed, just in case.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Hall saying something like:

Three times?

[Andy Hall]

Somebody doing the job of packing at the till should know these things. I've never had a problem when I've asked Waitrose and others to do it.

All of which is why the store should be providing packers. They can do that job while the customer pays.

Again completely avoidable by the store doing the packing.

[Owain]

I'd rather the store didn't supply staff (which adds to the prices and deducts from the dividends) but let volunteers from community groups do it for donations to charity. The Scouts sometimes do this, but only about once in a blue moon.

My "local" Lidl run all their checkouts in parallel, with a single (sometimes very long, but it moves quickly) queue and one of those "cashier number six please" thingies.

Owain

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Andy Hall writes

They do this occasionally in my local Somerfield. On balance, I prefer to pack myself, since I can separate freezer and non-freezer goods, and put things like bread, biscuits, eggs, etc. into the bags last so they won't be crushed.

[The Medway Handyman]

They must vary a lot, I've never waited more than a few minutes in the Gillingham one.

[The Medway Handyman]

That would destroy the 'hard discounter' concept entirely - extra staff cost money & increase the overhead. If you want that service shop at Waitrose & pay their prices.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It serves a pretty big area, the Croydon one. Other thing is the parking isn't adequate. I'm hoping they'll open a closer one given their expansion rate.

[The Medway Handyman]

The Gillingham one serves the 260,000 population of the Medway Towns & is on a huge business park, so parking is no problemo. Right behind a giant B&Q so handy for me in that way, but a pain because its at the other end of the town across the river. Wish they would open one on the business park this side.

[dennis]

I'm toolstation's best customer where I am. They know me by name, pull up my account, etc. The only thing I have had to wait for is when they were filling the coffee machine. I don't even need receipts to take stuff back, they just pull up the account and do it. Not bad for a DIY type who is not in the trade. They might notice the drop in trade now I have finished the bedroom/bathroom conversion.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

For some reason Screwfix chose a very small industrial estate for the Croydon one. Only perhaps a dozen companies on it with narrow roads, etc. It's fairly close to the massive Ikea shopping area where there is the largest B&Q warehouse locally and parking is easy - but perhaps rents there are too high. And rather too far to walk between.

[stuart noble]

And don't kid yourself the food's any better

[stuart noble]

You're obviously a delicate flower.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Why do you want someone to pack for you in a self service store? Different in a department store or 'traditional' shop but the idea of self service is to give the customers better value for money goods wise by cutting down on staff.