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[Yorkie]

I suspect that Waitrose tend to thin out North of Watford I suspect. Now you know why.

Colin

[EDIT - just checked, and the nearest 3 branches to me are, respectively 43, 44, and 45 miles away. York is the nearest.]

Our Waitrose is just three miles away - apart from occasional visit to a 24-Hr Tesco in town, (depressing) - Waitrose is the only place we do our supermarket shopping. The aisles are wide, the place is spotless, and the staff are helpful and pleasant. There's the added advantage that because Waitrose is part of John Lewis if you order JLP stuff online you can have it delivered to collect by next day at Waitrose.

A glance at the cars in the car park will confirm that many customers are indeed well-heeled - few of the cars are old enough to need an MOT and most I would say are over £25k. But in terms of price, the 'upmarket image' (ie, 'upmarket' = 'expensive'), is a bit outmoded.

Mark Price, the managing director of Waitrose, doesn’t believe that the retailer should be known as "upmarket" anymore. He states:

"The handle for Waitrose is always 'upmarket Waitrose', but how upmarket are we now that all the brands are the same price as Tesco and hundreds are 10pc less?" Price said. "We can still do that but, on the other hand, we can give you the best meat, the best fish, the best wine. In a typical Waitrose there are 25,000 products – that's more than any of our competitors."

However, I'm one of a legion of disgruntled Waitrose customers who used to enjoy sitting in the café at Waitrose quietly doing the crossword, enjoying a coffee while Jennifer does the shopping. Sadly, not any more - the café has turned into a cross between a down & out drop-in centre, a soup kitchen and workmans' canteen with a long queue to get a coffee so I don't bother now. Why the problem? Simple - a free cup of coffee with no obligation to shop there. All you need is a 'MyWaitrose Card' to get your free coffee or pot of tea.

Waitrose claims it's now the second largest 'seller' of coffee in the UK. How can that be - it isn't 'selling' if you give stuff away! The café is full of workmen in hi vis jackets and wellies, and people with Lidl, Aldi and Iceland shopping bags. Can't blame them - I guess this is an example of 'the law of unintended consequences' in action - if Waitrose offer free coffee/tea and free Wi-Fi with no obligation to shop there, what do they expect? I'd happily pay £3.00 a cup to turn back the clock and clear out the freeloading riff-raff but it isn't going to happen, so while Jennifer shops, I either sit in the car, or if ALDI have any 'special buy' tools worth a look, I sometimes stroll across the road and have a mooch around. (Couldn't shop there though - too shambolic - boxes in the aisles, lots of unfamiliar brands, stock strewn all over the place like a jumble sale, poor signage, unruly kids ramming about...no thanks - can't get out fast enough).

I guess that in exposing these prejudices I'm labelling myself as an impecunious 'Meldrew-esque' snob. This says it all:

Quote:

Waitrose faces complaints from disgruntled middle-class shoppers who claim its free coffee offer is attracting the wrong kind of customer.

The supermarket, which has a famously upmarket reputation, offers shoppers a free cup of tea of coffee each day if they sign up for a 'myWaitrose' card. A surge in coffee sales has occurred after Waitrose started offering shoppers who signed up to its loyalty card, myWaitrose, a free cup of tea or coffee every day. The move has made Waitrose the second largest provider of coffee in the UK but has sparked complaints from some regular shoppers who say others are now coming just for the free drink. In news that will frustrate independent coffee shops on the high street, Waitrose says it is shifting approximately 1m cups of coffee a week. Only McDonald's sells more coffee in the UK.

One Facebook user, Jennifer Huggins, wrote on Waitrose's Facebook page: "Please stop the free coffee at Barry Waitrose, it is putting me off shopping in the store people are coming with two cards two free coffee no shopping, with their Tesco bags." According to the Daily Mail, another shopper, Penny Clayden, who does a weekly £100 shop at the supermarket, implored Waitrose not to "turn into a 'soup kitchen' handing out free drinks".

End quote.

Quite so.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsb...tomer.html