supermarket Reduced items frenzy rant

fallon8

As im sure most of you know supermarkets reduce there perishable items if the best before date runs out on that day(yellow sticker items).

Previous bargains I have had at Tesco and Sainsbury's are Gressingham poussins 3.25 marked down to 33p, bags of oranges 1.49 down to 11p,taste the difference pizza 3.99 down to 65p etc.

But has anyone noticed the amount of people waiting at the right time to get these bargains and the mad dash when the sales assistant brings out the trolley of reduced items .
One word vultures!
An example was last Thursday at my local Tesco around 6pm, it was absolutely crazy people where fighting over maris piper potatoes, chicken drumsticks and what not, when I put my hand in to pick up some reduced kiwis I kid you not some women shoved my hand out of the way resulting in me getting scratched and no kiwi fruit. At that point I just backed away I have never seen anything like it ,it was like putting food out to a pack of wolves (or a Bloomingdale's clearance sale on women's designer shoes and handbags).
And this is not the first time I have seen it happen in the last few months.Now some customers have got there children involved and there even worse sprinting across the shop floor when they see the reduced items cart pull out. The staff say this is how it is all the time nowadays.

Has anyone else witnessed this at there local supermarket Or is it just here?
Next time when I go shopping I will try and capture it on my phone and upload it on YouTube it really is that bad, I swear one of these days someone is going to get seriously injured .
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jenniewb

Oh no, I've witnessed this many times, in a store near me they take all the food away, reduce it and then close off an aisle (if you wanted to buy anything on the aisle then tough). They then trolley in all the reduced items and then the barriers are up, everyone runs for the food, taking whatever they can grab-you have not seen hell till you have seen what happens here. Children are sent in to scramble as much as the adults can't carry and often adults- grown men and women will literally throw themselves onto the shelves where the reduced food has been dumped. It would seem like a police offence and it was called off at one time because security were stopping what looked like a fight, one women was banned for drawing blood as she fought another to grab food....it was actually scary.


There seems to be less of it in that particular store now because the staff seem to hold a lot back for themselves and so anything left over is pretty minimal, no one seems to want to jump anyone else for a wilted cabbage at 9p.


I've seen other stores where similar happens, and some where there does seem to be some order but it depends very much on the customers- the staff can try to tell people to calm down but if the customers refuse to listen or (my 'favorite') pretend they cannot speak English when challenged (yeah right!) then it's going to be a bad experience. I think it's worse at certain times of the year and this time through to around Easter is possibly the worst for it in my experience.

hollydays

I used to visit my supermarket years ago at about 8pm as this was when there would be very large reductions off meat. It was the same group of about 8 of us every week!

Now I've never seen this behaviour. I always make a point to stand back while the assistant is marking up so as not to get in their way. Most people I've seen are very polite. But then not all countries believing in queuing , that's our British reserve.

TUL105

Seen the frenzy myself at Wigmore Asda.

szam_

I used to reduce bakery items in Asda - people wouldn't wait and there used to be a frenzy around you, being pushed out of the way while trying to label things, people would pick things up and demand how much you should reduce it to.

This was 6 or 7 years ago mind. Used to be the most dreaded part of the day when working Sundays - the whole point in doing it in front of customer was so that they knew it was happening and were therefore more likely to buy - apparently.

It was half price around 1pm on a Sunday in the afternoon, 10p 30 minutes before store closing at 4.

Enfieldian

fallon8 wrote: »

Has anyone else witnessed this at there local supermarket Or is it just Luton?
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There lies the root of the problem.

LilElvis

There's never a crazed fight for reduced items in Waitrose and M&S, but that's because they leave the reduced items in the same place in the fridge/shelf/cabinet as the in-date items rather than creating a focal point for bargain hunters. Much more civilised!

DCFC79

Yes its pretty normal OP, theres a thread elsewhere where these kind of actions are mentioned, haven't witnessed it for a while as I dont shop at the time the final reductions are done.

mattyprice4004

And they say we're bad Oop Norf!

306chris

I used to reduce items on the fish and meat counter for a well known supermarket on a Monday night. It was that dead that I used to take most of it home (with managers approval) at silly cheap prices.

I ate so well in the year I did that job.

olgadapolga

My local Tesco have nice, orderly queues of people waiting for the reduced price food. Problem is, the nice orderly queue is so long it goes around the meat and veg departments a couple of times making it impossible to shop.