10 Things... no. 3 Sainsbury's

I've just been to Sainsbury's (if you're outside the UK, Sainsbury's is a leading supermarket, though overtaken over the last 5-10 years by Tesco's as Britain's biggest) and that's reminded me of one organisation that really p***es me off on a regular basis. I'd love to have a good alternative place to shop.

So, Sainsbury's if your reading this, here are 3 things you do that make me want to end a 25 year relationship with you:

1. You push your own brand goods.
Actually, Sainsbury's, I don't really consider a store that can't keep it's shelves properly stocked a quality brand. And in any case, I consider food an experiential good (what isn't?), and want to buy what I consider the best, even if the only discernible difference is in the packaging. Sainsbury's, you are gradually giving me less & less of a choice, and don't think I'm not noticing! You ant an example? Some while ago you stopped stocking I think it was Napoletana(?) grated parmesan cheese, in fact any but your own brand - "Sainsbury's grated Italian hard cheese". Design-free packaging, so really is cool, especially when you're entertaining. And I detect a slight lack of taste. Someday, I'll gear up to grate my own parmesan...

Today, though I wanted to buy spaghetti. You have recently given over 90% of the spaghetti shelf-space to your own brands!! The brand I used to get (Buitoni?) has disappeared, so I'm buying de Cecco in preference to your own. One thing I've noticed with inferior spaghetti is that it doesn't retain its firmness when slightly overcooked - it goes mushy and disgusting. I don't know what de Cecco will be like yet.

Probably just me, but I'm sure everyone has their individual subtle preferences. Who doesn't remember their mother sending them out on an errand and saying, don't get this brand, your father doesn't like it, make sure you get this brand...? Of course, Sainsbury's, you're a food store, so you must know this. So why do you want to force your own brand products down our throats? I'll tell you what I think. I think it's cheaper and easier for you. You don't have to give so much of your profits to those suppliers. They no longer "own" the customer. If you can wean everyone off brands and on to Sainsbury's "own-label", they'd have no reason to go shopping somewhere else because your store is crowded, has long queues at the checkout... In fact, it would be inconvenient for them to do so, as they would then have to learn to like what's available somewhere else, say at Tesco's. The beauty of this game is that all the supermarkets can play it. Once it's difficult for customers to switch, then each supermarket can concentrate on squeezing as much profit as possible out of its captive customers.

2. "Buy 2 for" offers
Sainsbury's, don't you realise how annoying these reduced price for 2 offers are? Luckily I have a freezer so I can buy 2 of something when I only want 1. Even so, I'm sure I waste some of those non-freezer items I'm compelled to buy 2 of. But those people who can't use 2 are effectively subsidising those who can! That is, the little old ladies living on their own with no freezer, are subsidising the rest of us. Another group who probably can't store food very effectively are students. So for Sainsbury's in Cambridge to have so many of these offers is even more crass. Doubly annoying, is that these offers are effectively random (from a customer perspective), and given your inability to keep shelves properly stocked anyway, tend to lead to empty spaces. The whole point of a supermarket is so the shopper can get everything you want in one visit, so what should you do your utmost to avoid? Yes, you've got it, empty shelves! For a saving of 18p on 2 packs, you are about to have an empty space this evening where the McVities Hobnob biscuits should be. Frankly, I'd rather pay an extra 18p than come home without something I want. And I want Hobnobs! So, a practice which alienates customers and is criminally wasteful. Great customer-care!

3. Strategically positioned impulse purchase items
My favourite here is the chewing gum at the one-queue-to-many-cashier checkouts. They may be basket only, but they're the ones I always use. Instead of a flat shelf in front of the cashier where I want to pack my bag, there are sloping trays of chewing-gum. The sticks of gum are bashed up through people packing their bags there anyway and sometimes fall on the floor. This is daft! You inconvenience your customers all the time just to try to sell a few packets of gum!

May I also spell out that the supermarket layout was once, way back in the distant past, designed to allow the customers enough space to move around. Why, then, is it OK to put a few hundred pumpkins in what last week was circulation space? I won't even mention fire regulations. Oops, just done it!

So how does Sainsbury's get away with all this? Simply because they are a de facto monopoly. People shop there because it is there. There are a few smaller food shops in the centre of Cambridge, but the nearest alternative supermarket is a Tesco's a mile away (on Newmarket Road) that is designed for people to drive to - in fact, not really safe to cycle to. I keep meaning to go there just to see if they are playing the same games to squeeze profits as Sainsbury's. Quite probably they are, simply because there is an element of monopoly about every supermarket. Most people probably shop at the most local or convenient supermarket. The business is not about winning customers - competition - but about getting the best sites, and (as I've alluded too) making it difficult for customers to switch.

Is this really so bad? I say it is. We have a number of chains which now monopolise our high streets and "malls" (as the Yanks say). This is degrading our quality of life. All towns are the same. On top of that, buying quality goods is becoming more and more difficult. And what's more, it is inefficient. The only way these monopoly suppliers can increase their profits is to give us, the consumer, less for our money. As we are limited in what we can spend, they give us lower and lower quality goods, and a more and more stressful shopping experience, imposing costs (in terms of stress) on us all, in the hope of selling a stick or two extra of chewing gum. All that ever appears in their books is that extra few pence profit, they don't see the costs of all the annoyance they cause you and I.

What can be done about this? Broadly, if we want to address this problem, there are 2 ways for us to go. We can either insist on competition. We could limit the size of stores, we could ensure leases were low enough for areas to support competing stores of a particular type. We could reserve sites for different food stores, rather than letting the highest bidders - monopolists in different sectors - um, monopolise them.

Or we could regulate the behaviour of these companies. We could restrict own brand goods. Supermarkets are not markets at all. Markets are full of competing businesses. The role of supermarkets should be to offer as much choice as possible, not restrict it. Sainsbury's in Cambridge, for example, gives up some space to CDs, despite the lack of choice on food items I've described (and many other stores selling CDs in Cambridge) - perhaps we could restrict them to selling certain types of goods only. We could ban wasteful "2 for less" offers. And we could force them to internalise costs they don't currently see. I'll write about queuing another time, no doubt, but we could be imaginative: we could regulate these businesses by charging them a cost if the store is too crowded. Then, they could choose to avoid that cost, by, for example, keeping the aisles and circulation areas free. Then they'd see whether it was worth squeezing those few 100 pumpkins into the store.

I'd argue we should do both. We should do what we can to encourage it, but competition can only achieve so much. There is a limit to the number of stores in a given locality. Every store is to some extent a monopoly and should be regulated as such.

If we want a more pleasant, efficient society, that is.