This mystery shopping test was done on Friday April 3, 2009, accompanied by my son. It was raining heavily and mad dashes from the car to the store entrance made us soaked. Still, it was +10C, and is expected for spring. Trip review: Price Chopper A, Nofrlls C.
General Notes
Toronto has a varying climate with 4 distinct seasons and significant precipitation. In the winter we can get a snowfall of 20cm in one day. Copious amounts of rain can fall, as is the case today. It has been raining hard today. Toronto is expecting 10-20mm of rain, so much so that you still get very wet running from the car to the store.
___Both Price Chopper and NoFrills start new advertisement flyers today. Flyers are released on Thursday and take effect on the start of Friday. Unfortunately for both retailers, paper-based flyers are delivered to our house via the local newspaper at worst Saturday midday or at best very late Friday evening, after store close. There is, therefore, a loss of one day of exposure for their flyer due to the delivery schedule. Fortunately the internet-based flyers for both retailers are usually posted on Thursday noon. Price Chopper has been known to delay their internet-based flyer until Friday morning.
Price Chopper at Brimley/Huntingwood, Toronto, Ontario,Canada
___Price Chopper, Brimley/Huntingwood, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Objective: New flyer sale priced orange juice, potatoes and general weekly shopping. This Price Chopper is smaller in floor space, so product is at times squeezed together more than I would like. Though they carry the whole selection of products, it is a store geared to Chinese and Indian customers.
Today Price Chopper starts a new two week flyer. Normally the start of a flyer guarantees the purchase of sale items, but often shipments are late or the manufacturer has no product to ship. This week both my items were in stock.
It was raining cats and dogs outside, but the metal overhang of the store kept the shopping carts dry. My sons sits in these carts, so a wet shopping cart is unacceptable. We have been known to leave retail stores that have wet shopping carts for this reason, most notably Home Depot. Today the carts were neatly ordered in two rows, I put my money in and got a cart in good working order, just like I should. This fact surprised me at the time, which probably means it does not happen often enough.
My search for the advertised sale priced potatoes started, logically in the potatoe section, where there was no sign of the sale priced item. Hmmm, the next logical place to look is the front of the store near the entrance, and this is exactly where I found them. The potatoe section has large bins of their regularly sold brands, with no place for these sale priced potatoes. It would have been better to have at least a sign and some stock of the potatoes on sale.
Frozen orange juice should logically be found in the freezer section, and it was. There were three variations of the same orange juice,all available, well merchandised and priced.
Recently Old South frozen orange juice has changed its packaging from a cardboard sleeve with aluminum ends to an all plastic container, and in doing so decreased the volume of their product by 5% while increasing their price. Did you think I would not notice? We are not amused. This has not been competitive enough for me, so I have been avoiding the brand. When all your competitors are offering more juice for the same price, you should follow suit. I am also unsure of the safety of the all plastic container and prefer the cardboard and aluminum wrapper. Most other manufacturers still use the older packaging, so I need not change to the newer plastic container.
In following the orange juice market I have noticed that within the last year frozen orange juice has rarely gone on sale, while regular unfrozen orange juice from concentrate regularly goes on sale. Regular unfrozen orange juice from concentrate varies the most in price. Regular unfrozen orange juice not from concentrate is by far the most expensive but sometimes goes on sale. In a blind taste test of family members, we tested 1) unfrozen not from concentrate, from China, Huiyuan brand, 2) unfrozen not from concentrate, 3) unfrozen from concentrate, 4) frozen from concentrate. Overwhelmingly the favourite was regular unfrozen not from concentrate. The Chinese orange juice brand uses an orange that is tarter than we are used to here in North America, so it was called out by my kids. Personally I don’t mind it.
Testers found no difference in taste between unfrozen from concentrate and frozen from concentrate. We use tap water filtered with a Brita filter. Such simple tests can help you determine whether the extra cost of unfrozen orange juice is worthwhile. We no longer purchase unfrozen from concentrate orange juice.
Other items that we sought were easily found and purchased. There were no employees packing out merchandise during my shop. Checkout was quick and efficient.
___Experience Rating: A. A good shopping experience with merchandise well layed out and priced.
NoFrills, Kennedy/Sheppard, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
___NoFrills, Kennedy/Sheppard, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Objective: New flyer sale priced ice cream, cheese and general weekly shopping.
Again it was raining cats and dogs, so I was glad to get under the store’s large metal overhang. Unfortunately for me, the metal overhang was leaking more water than the Titanic, and if it could have sunk, would have. Unfortunately for both of us, almost all the shopping carts were wet. The first row of carts seemed driest, so I inserted my coin but could not dislodge a cart from its brethren. In trying to get a cart free, I got my finger stuck in the cart and pinched it quite badly. It continues to throb as I write, over an hour later. I am unamused. In order to get a dry cart I had to move a group of 10 carts away. These carts are heavy and I should not need to do this much work to get an appropriate cart. Please, NoFrills, keep your carts well maintained and dry. Is this too much to ask from your customers?
There were many employees packing out merchandise. Often they are sloppy with their boxes and skids and can block the aisle so that your cart cannot pass. Sometimes they will block access ways between fixtures, such that they create one long 20′ aisle with one way in and one way out. Today there were some blockages but I was able to get my cart through. One employee was concentrating so much on merchandising that he failed to see that customers wanted to pass. I had to wait for him to wake up, but be did apologize. Ok, fine.
I found one of my favourite cashiers putting on sale labels for products reduced in the new flyer. She is one of my favourites because on cash she is competent. At least I have confidence that she will put the proper labels on the right fixtures. I wondered why this repricing was not this done earlier?
The sale priced cheese was readily available, properly merchandised and priced. This brand of cheese is new to the store. About two months ago this cheese was also on sale, but I could not buy any because supposedly the manufacturer did not send any to the NoFrills warehouse, so none of the stores had product.
Huge skids of Coke-brand product that were on sale last week were still on the floor, unwanted and unpurchased. At least they were still at last week’s sale price. Is there nothing else worthy in the new sales flyer to replace Coke?
We bought eggs, canned pineapple and salt, all with no issues. Checkout was also without issue. Still, my finger was throbbing.
___Experience Rating: C. I should not get hurt while on a shopping trip. Physically harming your customers does not put them into a great shopping mood and pretty much spoils the shopping experience.
___Wet or dry, sun or snow, all grocery retails should be able to adapt to changing weather. Today Price Chopper did a great job and NoFrills did a poor job. Year in and out, the weather conditions are similar, so why was weather such a large issue today?