Sainsbury's in Dursley, England Closed now

Reviews about Sainsbury's

• ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

  2017-06-24, by Jarrad Harries
  It's a supermarket. The range they stock tends toward the esoteric - insofar as they seem to maintain dozens of types of some things at the expense of having any representatives at all of others - and the organisation of the shelves tends toward the downright perverse, but the staff are friendly (too friendly if you're in a hurry and they recognise the person in front of you) and they sell stuff. I could wish for a big Aldi or similar instead, but there you go! Update: they have now incorporated a tiny Argos branch, cutting down the available floor space even further and making their ranges even more "selective", so I have deducted a star. The choice for many staples is now total rubbish compared to the competition, and I imagine that Iceland, Lidl and Tesco Cam will be picking up a lot of their trade. The shelf organisation has become even weirder, too, as they struggle to accomodate groceries, seasonal items, homeware, toys et al in a disastrously small footprint. The overall effect tends to the schizophrenic: I do not predict a bright future for the supermarket in its current incarnation and I believe they have made a huge and mistaken gamble by putting the too-small-to-be-worthwhile Argos in. Frankly, they should stop doing everything badly and focus on doing a few things well. There are two card and gift shops a minute's walk away, so ditch the entire aisle of cards for starters. Fix your signage so it matches what's actually on the shelves. Sort out your prices so you're not 10-20% more expensive than Tesco. Cut down on the gluten-free and vegan ranges: you are now devoting as much shelf space to these options as the whole of the rest of the store once you take away drinks and household items, and despite current publicity these are still niche products: the people with extra money to spend on high-end packaged "Free From" foods are shopping at Waitrose anyway. Expand your bakery options: nobody needs 50-odd types of branded cakes and cookies, but it would be nice to be able to grab some decent savouries like we can at Lidl. Seriously, by putting Argos into an already limited and confused store, Sainsbury's Dursley has gone from "so-so" to "so what?"... Do better!