Tesco Extra, West Bromwich - 14th March 2015

This time, I decided to go into the Black Country to do my weekly shop and head to a supermarket that was recommended by one of my housemates. Tesco Extra in West Bromwich is a new supermarket (built 2 years ago) and is situated at the town centre. It is part of the New Square which also consisted of various other shops such as Primark, JD Sports, Next, Bank, etc.

So, is the supermarket as good as it sounds? The criteria is as follows.

1. Clean - yes and the layout looks new and modern with an atmosphere!
2. Friendly staff - customer services were amazing as they helped me with a free parking slip. Checkout staff - hmmmm... no. No "Hello" or "Good afternoon" greeting or a goodbye. This member just scanned the items and was just solely on concentrating on getting the receipt and wanted to me to get out of the checkout. Not impressed. More concentrated on talking to the ones behind me who turned out to have more of a cultural custom than me. So, a major minus point.
3. Aisle width - wide and you can fit at least two trolleys in each aisle. I shopped there at around 2:30pm and it was pretty busy!
4. Everything I was looking for was in stock - Well stocked goods and am impressed with the variety of goods available.
5. Extras: pharmacy/opticians/specialist food/petrol station - There is a petrol station (big) which offers unleaded petrol at 107.9p per litre which matches the price at Sainsbury's Northfield so it's pretty cheap. It boasts a cafe which looks new and modern. Other additions include an opticians, a Tesco direct (catalogue) order point, a mobile phone / technical help desk, clothing (for men, women and kids), but lacks a pharmacy. There are four aisles dedicated to world foods ranging from Irish, American, Filipino, Afro-Caribbean, Asian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese goods available. I was impressed by this and bought some specialist goods at reasonable prices. And want to buy some cream teas? - yes, clotted cream is available!
6. Fresh produce with long sell-by dates - Mostly. There is a section of reduced items with some reduced by half. However, I didn't need to buy any reduced goods. Tesco are playing a game to fool people by putting the goods that have shorter sell-by dates on easy reach, but with long sell-by dates right at the bottom, which meant I needed to kneel down to get bread with a long sell by date. There's an impressive range of oriental fresh produce - ung choi (Chinese spinach), pak choi and mooli!
7. Opening Hours- Truly exceptional. Opens from midnight on Monday to midnight on Saturday and maintaining a 24 hour store. Sundays are open 10am to 4pm.
8. Speed of till-processing - all manned tills in service (18) and a lot of self-service tills. Didn't have to wait to long on a manned till - around three minutes.
9. Self-service tills available - yes, but decided to go for the manned tills.
10. Parking facilities - yes with a large car park divided into clear zones. You do need to be careful when shopping there as you need a free parking voucher, something that the checkout staff didn't offer, which was not polite, which meant I needed to head to customer services, who were friendly! 2 hours free parking available as long as you spend £5 or more. Another thing which lets down is that you do need to drive around the car park and literally HUNT for parking space as not a lot is available, but it is peak time on Saturday. Also, redeeming a free parking voucher is naff. Wait for 10 minutes, and the process itself takes like three minutes to get the right car and redeem the voucher. They NEED MORE parking meters so that the process is faster!
11. Value for money - part of the big four supermarkets, they do have quite a lot of special offers. Obviously, some items are more expensive in Tesco than in other supermarkets so you need to shop around!
12. Organic produce - available if you want them.
13. Cash machine or cash back - Tesco Bank cash machines are available outside. Tesco also offers cash back when you shop.
14. Pedestrian access - yes and are step free.

Overall, I was generally impressed with the layout of the store and the huge variety of goods available. Staff are friendly (minus the checkout staff). And you have the chance to meet one of your lovely tutees despite being 15 miles away! And yes, it was a little awkward.

The supermarket does face stiff competition with Morrisons and the market stalls not being far away (around half a mile away) but it seems to be very busy with a good atmosphere.

Photo courtesy of www.expressandstar.com

Rating: 7 out of 10 (-1 for checkout, -1 for their unwise strategy of putting long sell-by fresh produce at the bottom, notably bread, -1 for parking facilities)