Day in Supermarket - Wrottesley Street - 28th March 2015

It's the weekend, and it's time to head to another supermarket. My parents provided me with company this time and we decided to head to Chinatown to buy lots of stuff!

We decided to head to the Day in Supermarket situated at Wrottesley Street in Birmingham. This is situated opposite the "Big Wok" Chinese buffet.

I did a review on this supermarket around this time last year and gave it a 7 out of 10. How will it fare this time? 

The criteria is as follows.

1. Clean - Clean, with items stocked well.
2. Friendly staff - Yes, friendly. They are trilingual (English, Cantonese and Mandarin) and gave good greetings. My parents and I spoke to them in Cantonese. There were some customers who spoke to them in English and staff were very friendly to them and gave good advice on what items to buy. Staff also packed bags for us which was very kind of them!
3. Aisle width - unfortunately due to size, it's narrow and it meant that two small trolleys was a struggle. The supermarket size is also smaller than the busier Arcadian branch. You need to be very patient and often need to be saying "Excuse me" all the time to get through the aisles.
4. Everything I was looking for was in stock - Mostly - great for specialist Oriental stock, not so good on products such as dairy products.
5. Extras: pharmacy/opticians/specialist food/petrol station - Nothing extra - just specialist food available.
6. Fresh produce with long sell-by dates - Variable (basically the same as the Day in Supermarket at the Arcadian). Stocks not on special offer have long sell-by dates. However,  if they are on special offer, be wary that products are close to their sell-by dates. These include noodles and sauces. In addition, they have an "Out of Date" stock section. Not very appealing to me....
7. Opening Hours - 9am to 6pm Mondays to Saturdays. 10am to 6pm Sunday. Long opening hours on a Sunday as it's not a big supermarket, more of the size of a convenience store. Quite restrictive opening hours in my opinion.
8. Speed of till-processing - two manned tills available. Fast, efficient, friendly and they pack bags for you. What more can you ask for?
9. Self-service tills available - no, why need them?
10. Parking facilities - unfortunately due to its location, based right at the city centre, there's no free parking. The nearest is the Chinatown car park opposite which offers reasonable parking prices.
11. Value for money - Generally okay, they do provide reasonable prices and around a third to a half of the products price match or are cheaper than Wing Yip in Nechells. However, if you want to compare like for like prices for specialist Oriental products compared to the Big Four Supermarkets, then Day in Supermarket wins hands down. Especially on products such as the Chinese vegetables (pak choi, choi sum, ung choi etc.), tofu, soy sauce and noodles.
12. Organic produce - not as far as I am aware of.
13. Cash machine or cash back - No cash machine available. You need to go to the other end of the Arcadian to find cash machines. That is a five minute walk away and crossing roads! You could pay by card, but it requires a £5 minimum purchase!
14. Pedestrian access - Requires improvement - one side with steps and one side with a ramp, allowing disabled access. The only let down at the end of the ramp - there is a step, so that could be improved. One to avoid for disabled customers - better go to the Arcadian instead.

Overall, the Day in Supermarket at Wrottesley Street has a more chilled out but friendlier atmosphere than the Arcadian. We generally go to this branch than the Arcadian purely for its customer service as the products they stock are the same! Well, obviously they should be as it's the same branch. I still find it a little puzzling how these two supermarkets are only five minutes walk away from each other. They are better off opening some branches around Birmingham. Maybe offer a rivalry to Korea Foods in Selly Oak?

Photo courtesy of The Local Data Company

Rating: 7 out of 10 (-0.5 for lack of some essential stock (dairy products as an example), -0.5 for parking facilities, -1 for special offers and out of stock section (not offering long sell by dates), -0.5 for opening hours, -0.5 for minimum purchase for use of credit/debit cards

At least the Day in Supermarket has retained its rating of 7 out of 10 for me