Shopping at the chain stores has become so uneventful and tedious; its all the same, same ice cream, chocolate, sauces, chips, meat choices, etc etc.
Independents have different variety however that comes with an increase in price.
Just curious as to what others think?
What Would You Like to See More of in Supermarkets?
No matter what a supermarket does grocery shopping is never going to not be uneventful and tedious.
If you scroll up Ski-Meds, you will see that some innovative store manager has reportedly transformed horse's local supermarket into something akin to an old-skool rave-party. Now THAT'S innovation, and I personally want to shop there. I reckon it sounds vibrant, and exciting.
Free stuff.
Bikies
Marijuana based products.
Mmmyeah OK a serious response from me on this. It's odd (almost inexplicable) that the science has been 'in' on the virtues (environmental/economic/etc.) of cannabis/hemp-based products since the late 1970s (if not before), but only now—approximately 50 years later—it looks like the Australian public/producers might finally start taking advantage of the humble 'pot-plant'. It is simplistic to say that the utilisation of it has been 'shackled' by the psychoactive properties of the plant, because ultra-low THC crops of it have been successfully/legally grown in Tasmania for decades. It is my impression that this potential natural resource has remained under-utilised economically by Australia for many years, due to nothing more than misguided 'stigma'.
much wider variety of dairy products, i.e. variations of quark, cottage cheeses, kefir varieties, drinking yoghourts and etc.
Like buffalo cheese?
sure, why not :)
i.e. variations of quark
Quarks are very small Ahmet. Even if the supermarkets stocked them, how would we possibly find them?
Sorry, didn't get what you meant here :)
1L sriracha bottles.
Stores offering to adopt your children
A decent Pork Pie would be nice.
A neurological orgasm
Pole dancing
I want to shop were you are shopping!
I want peeps to learn the difference between 'were' and 'where'.
Alcohol. I live in SA where it's illegal for ALDI and Costco to stock alcohol. Come on SA, catch up to NSW and Victoria. Stop giving in to the vested interests of Woolworths.
Oh wow, thank you Mr F, you have clarified a mystery for me. I was recently baffled by the lack of a 'grog section' when I 'ran in' to an Aldi during a stop-over in Adelaide. Now I know the reason for it. Seriously, they are not allowed to sell booze? That smacks of a breach of 'anti-competition law' or sommat like that…
It really doesn't… It smacks of laws around liquor, it will be like qld, must be attached to a public house.
hows it in wa tas nt?
A special marshalling area for Mothers clubs.
They clog up aisles with their trolleys chatting about gossip :P
It's worse at the registers
A bank of microwaves to heat up frozen meals
More bargains can never have enough!
Less local produce, vague content labels and more screaming kids please.
Baby formula, I don't even have a child… I see the stereotypical forumla snatchers with 10 cans of the stuff in their trolley, no mother in sight, no baby in sight just 5 kids ransacking the joint.
At least that's how it is at my local Coles.
I'm not trying to be racist so I apologise if someone sensitive gets trigger off this..
'stereotypical forumla snatchers', wouldn't that be a troll?
I'm white aussie born and i sell baby formula overseas to help pay my mortgage, and i got 3 kids.
That's nice.
I'm white aussie born and i sell baby formula overseas to help pay my mortgage, and i got 3 kids.
Awww, and here's dumb old me still peddlin old-skool crack. How do I break into this new 'white-powder market' m-user? Can you please introduce me to your 'superiors'?
They need to be tougher, even though it may be a bit tedious, I reckon proof of having a child would be a good deterrent
I wish they had what kmart did back in the days. I whole section with various lollies that you fill up in a bag at random. I miss those days, but my teeth don't :(
But how do you avoid the ones that kids touched / licked and put.back?
Glory holes
Consistent layout
Seriously wtf, more space at the self checkout. Not more checkouts. Just more space for each one.
Me: I stroll my trolley down a zillion isles of empty 'serviced' checkouts only to find a crappy small space to check out with 10 trolleys already occupying the 15 self checkout kiosks. With no room to breath or maneuver, I place my trolley half way in the isle, blocking the path of other shoppers eagerly trying to leave. I proceed to scan my full trolley into six smaller batches, sorting out my bags like a puzzle; on the floor, back in the trolley, on the small metal bag counter thing.
Checkout- "please remove last item from bagging area",
Me- "no, I am the human, you are the computer, I tell you what to do!"
Me- "Dammit I've run out of bags, I don't want to give this place another 15 cents"
Me- Proceeds to put items back into trolley instead.
Me- Double scans, "f…", looks at price to see if it is worth my time getting assistance. Yes, it always is. Waits for assistant to finish their conversation about their holiday in Bali.
Me- "I double scanned"
Assistant- ….sigh….. taps several times. Walks off, no words are exchanged.
fffffffuuuuu….. I'm ending this here before I get an Aneurysm.
Meanwhile Coles and Woolies management are sitting back laughing so hard about all the money they are saving on wages by getting rid of checkout staff and how they got their customers to work as checkout operators for free! :D
Just ask them to open a checkout. Someone at Coles let me know that after I almost had an aneurysm with a full load (of groceries) one evening.
This does work some of the time, they'll call someone from a different department to go on a register
You seen that Amazon store with no checkouts? If we can put this into implementation we can save so much store space.
Just imagine the whole checkout area and lines just gone and I don't have to deal with rude staff or queues
and I don't have to deal with rude staff
Is it just me, or are peeps seriously overstating the (apparent) rudeness of the staff at Colesworth? I'll just put it out there and say that I shop at Northland, (dep)Preston, Heidelberg, and surrounding areas in Victoria often, and rarely if ever do I encounter 'rude staff' at Coles, or Woolworths. Which personally I find remarkable, because these dudes are not working for high wages, nor are they typically 'there forever'/forging a life-long career. Despite that though, they are always courteous, professional, and kind to me and my young son. I also notice that it is not just me; they go out of their way to help others to the best of their ability/to the extent that the 'systems available to them' allow. I routinely witness them 'handling' (/putting up with) odd consumer behaviour/requests/etc. in a very professional manner. I am genuinely impressed by the staff at both of these supermarkets, and I have been consistently, for years. I wonder if this is the experience of anyone else on here who cares to say so? Surely it can't just be me…
I was once curtly told "the store shuts in 10 mins" as i walked into ww, i shrugged it off as someone overly enthused to go home, 5 mins later the same lady comes down the cheese isle litterally shooing me and 2 other people out the isle saying "only 5 mins till we shut best you go to the checkout now"
Lol you get good and bad.
Wouldn't consider it rude for staff to remind you of a closing time. They're shift finishes at closing time, they aren't paid extra for staying back for people who bring a full trolley at 11:59. If they didn't serve you though I'd completely agree
The supermarkets actually go to a ridiculous amount of effort to find good staff such as psychometric testing, and multiple stage interviews.
Auto trolleys, so whatever is put in the trolley, the cost automatically uploads to your basket. When the trolley leaves the store your account gets e-billed.
After unloading the trolley in your boot, the trolley self propels back to the store.
In this scenario my car would drive without me, and do errands.
….beam me up Scotty
Righto. The next step towards 'ultimate efficiency' is someone (or perhaps a robot) excises my brain, sticks it in a 'main-frame' on a shelf, and my brain is then simply provided with whatever electric signals/stimuli it would have been provided with if I was actually moving about in 'real society'.
Meanwhile, my actual body is 'recycled'.
You can't stop progress, I guess…
This already exists, Amazon Go
Registers open f*** me since these self serve checkouts came out my local coles has never has more then 2 people in express and 1 on the regular trolley registers.
There was a day then the self checkout went down and i had to wait like 45 mins due to fuk all staff on.
Fukn glad people steal shit from self check out
Would like to see bigger quality fruits. I usually found them in smaller stores, sometimes in Korean or Chinese groceries. Pear the size of melon.
I also like pear-shaped melons bimbo; but size is not so important to me.
Nice try ColesWorth.
Pffft. Free market research!
Sometimes market research benefits both parties movers. There's nothing inherently wrong with your provider actively trying to find out what you want. In fact, it's better than them assuming that they already know what you want.
10c off petrol shop-a-docket
25c off petrol shop-a-docket
Honestly they should do something stupid like a customer in the mall can win a random item every hour or something haha lol.
Would be fun and the winner gets to accept or deny the item (say if they are in a rush or cannot carry it).
That and I honestly miss those free sample stands they used to have before haven't seen one for some time.. like a sample of this meat or drink or something maybe every now and then would be cool maybe max per customer so that no one treats it like a free buffet haha I don't know.
Those are my few ideas.
Maybe customers can vote once on some random poll in store using their loyalty card (so for Woolworths it would be Woolworths Rewards card and can vote once per poll or day or something).
last free sample stand I saw was Metamucil's liquid 'dietary fibre'
so a free sample of mild laxative 😓
Lol thats a terrible deal
… depends.
Needleless strawberries
2018 wants you back.
Corn that hasn't already been dehusked and then wrapped in plastic on a Styrofoam tray!
You can throw corn in the microwave for 3 minutes while it's still in its husk, chop the end off and squeeze it out, cooked to perfection with no stringy bits to deal with! I refuse to buy corn now if it has been processed in any way.
hot food ready to go (like what they have in Japanese convenience stores)
Lawson!
More variety and hotter hot sauces.
Also, some consistency in where the eggs are. Every store has them in a random place.
Egg placement is by design. It's to make you buy more, because you walk around the whole store looking for them.
I work in a supermarket and its one of the most asked for items in the store.
I also agree on the hot sauces. Can't wait to see the day when a bottle of a Carolina reaper rectum wrecker appears on the shelf at Coles.
Threesomes…
Full-on, masks-on, whips out, ball-and- OOPS soz, wrong forum.
More Asian food!
More Asian food!
On this note, it would be good if both Coles and Woolies could stock the 'Mamee' noodles (just the plain ones without the flavour already added to each individual bag; serial# 0-51325 11614-3). A few Coles outlets in 'highly Asianised' (no offense intended) regions in Victoria stock them, but none near me do. My son loves them… he's half Asian so maybe it's genetic… but I have to travel a few suburbs to get them. I reckon if you (Colesworth) stock the 'stock-standard' plain version of the Mamee ready-to-eat noodles (the one without the flavour thingy already added into each little individual pack) in every shop, you won't look back. They will be a big seller, mark my words.
More Asians
Stock of items that are on special, rather than just empty shelves.
Mud wrestling in the produce section.
Conversely, I think there is a much more pressing need for higher productivity in the mud wrestling section.
actual bargains
Self-serve checkout where it’s an actual metre long tray where you place your items and at the end you scan/bag up and pay your items.
I’ve only ever seen Macquarie centre Coles supermarket do this? Yet other supermarkets ALDI, Woolworths haven’t followed ?
As every time I do a large grocery shop late at night, the only checkout open is the self-served area and with a large trolly and so many items it’s so daunting.
It’s a shame supermarkets don’t have many staff manning the normal checkout isles all times of the day.
Food
Drink
Definitely CHEAPER groceries..
Coles and woolworth are charging exorbitant amounts for their products..
I really don't think they are. May I ask what your comment is based on?
Fruit and VEg are a rort in the inner city and eastern suburbs of
Sydney
Coles and Woolworths operate on 5% or less profit margin once all costs are taken into account. It's hard to believe, but it's true.
It's hard to believe, but it's true.
So for Woolies, $55 billion in revenue and $1.72 billion profit.
Did I do the math correctly for 2017-2018 FY?
Free fruit for adults!
LOL. I think maybe we should not 'push it' #1, because to me it is simply amazing that Woolies still to this day provide free fruit to any kid that walks in to the shop! They have been doing this for YEARS now, and it has come to a point where Coles have essentially been 'shamed' into doing the same thing! I tell peeps in other countries about this and they cannot understand it, and clearly struggle to even believe it. I have said it a million times on this site, but to me this was a great Australian innovation that Woolies pioneered/did. That pommy bloke J. Oliver said on a telly ad that it was 'not much, but it's something', but I see it a bit differently. I think that it was a very substantial act. Simple logic dictates that it must have improved the physical health and conceptual/culinary attitudes of thousands of Australian children in recent years.
Possibly it depends on the area in which you live. I live in an area where there's a lot of families without much money, and I can tell you, when a father or mother comes in with a couple of kids and buys 2 litres of milk, a $1 loaf of bread, and both kids also get a free piece of fruit that they otherwise may not have got, that is a 'grass-roots system' that is working extremely well. When Woolies Started that 'free fruit for kids' policy up, and I repeatedly saw things like that happening at my local supermarket, I decided I would only shop there for my 'main grocery shop' until they ended what I though at the time was merely a promotional gimmick. They never ended it, thus I remain loyal to them for all of my 'main grocery shops'.
I think that's something that was neither 'pioneered' in Woolworths, or Australia. Sorry.
Well that's interesting. Where/when was it pioneered then?
Proper unit pricing that can be easily compared.
Proper theft detection so we don't have deadbeats with an entire trolley worth of food going through the self-service checkouts when it would be quicker to just go via the manned checkouts…
Quality fruit and vegetables at reasonable prices.
I'd like to follow the American trend of bulk size and more variety, e.g. CostCo, but also SuperStore (Canadian variety).
20L coke full sugar
Open checkouts, or a discount for using self service terminals.
More cashier operators and security. Putting a hard item limit on the self-serve registers.
Cowbells
"uneventful and tedious" …. its a supermarket. No matter what a supermarket does grocery shopping is never going to not be uneventful and tedious.