Sainsbury's - like shopping overseas?

Cornucopia

Let me spell it out: if the JS prices had been in Euros, that would have been closer to what I would have expected to pay.

I'm no expert, but the chicken seems a lot less dubious than the ham.

Is it any better if you spend three quid on it?

tripled

Generally I'd say the stuff from Lidl is as good as most of the own brand stuff from the big four but a bit cheaper, unless you have a £xx off your shop coupon. I tend to shop in whatever supermarket I have vouchers for, and if I don't have any vouchers I'll use Lidl.

My local Sainsbury's is definately dearer than Tesco though, often simply because they don't have a value or own brand option for something that would be perfectly fine, and because their own brand stuff is often slightly more expensive (although can sometimes be better quality) than Tesco. Tesco Clubcard is also better (worth double Sainsbury's reward scheme).

Sainsbury's are doing a fairly good job at the moment convincing people they offer good value (as opposed to the best prices), however unless you have a few quid off your shop I'd disagree. Value is subjective though whereas prices are not

meer53

martinthebandit wrote: »

Never heard of the old adage ' you get what you pay for'?

At some of the big supermarkets this isn't true.

The low cost supermarkets have shown shoppers that you can get quality food for a much lower price.

ThumbRemote

meer53 wrote: »

At some of the big supermarkets this isn't true.

The low cost supermarkets have shown shoppers that you can get quality food for a much lower price.

Albeit (in my experience) you get a significantly smaller choice and much poorer customer service.

Cornucopia

The choice thing is interesting. It varies hugely between product types.

Money-Saving-King

ThumbRemote wrote: »

much poorer customer service.

What is much poorer customer service? A bit of a queue?

Cornucopia

When I used to live in Central London, the local Tesco and Asda had massive queues for much of the time.

The local Lidl was a breath of fresh air - 2 or 3 people is barely a queue at all.

dotdash79

ThumbRemote wrote: »

Albeit (in my experience) you get a significantly smaller choice and much poorer customer service.

I've found the customer service in ALDI a lot better than ASDA, and a million miles better than Tesco. Our local ALDI always have lots of staff working around and because the store is smaller they have a better knowledge of what they hold or don't.

I prefer the smaller choice, have you noticed how many rows are for sweets and crisp drinks do you need that much choice of rubbish that will make you fat.

Cornucopia

The point is that having a small store begins to be a fundamentally different business model to having a huge barn of a store.

Part of the price advantage of the Discounters must be down to that, and the corresponding smaller number of staff and smaller range of goods.

When the dust settles, I'm pretty sure we will still have the big 4 supermarkets. Whether they will all be so keen to build big, monolithic stores is a different matter, though.

geerex

pollypenny wrote: »

We get Sainbury's voucher, £4 off a £20 shop, fairly regularly. We go around with a calculator and aim for £20 .

We are usually about that and its a good discount,,then.

Yeah, we get either the £8 off £40 or £12 off £60 vouchers.
I agree, sainsburys can appear horribly expensive, but I use their vouchers on their offers (mysupermarket is handy for comparison) and play them at their own game. Always end up with loads of stuff genuinely cheaper than anywhere else.

In short, shop around. Aldi/lidl aren't always cheaper for everything, particularly when you factor in quality.