Up Town And In Pocket (Safeway)

Member Name: lynn_bex

Product:	Safeway
Date:	23/08/01 (154 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great offers, Great for people watching

Disadvantages: Of it's uptown type? - None

This began as a comment on the recent “Safeway” opinion of fellow dooyooer, jennifer3002, but once my comment reached the length of a “short op,” I thought it more sensible to “post that opinion”…

So I have.

I didn’t think I did this kind of opinion…

However, like jennifer3002, I too have an eye for a bargain and always watch out for special offers…

Except…

Truth be told, these days I have no time to bargain hunt and, (thank heavens) no real need to watch every penny… But, old habits die-hard…

A few years back, after a long, long career break, I resumed my pre-motherhood “uptown girl” position, - albeit these days it’s more “uptown Old Girl”. Once again I commute into London for each day’s work, waving goodbye to my leafy suburb at 8.00 am and rarely arriving back home before 7.00pm.

I earn more money that I’d have dreamed possible a few years back, but somehow I have never quite managed to shake off the persona of that part-time/local- working, scrimping-and-saving young mother that I used to be… When every penny really did count.

So, I was both captivated and mystified by a recent London newspaper ad for Safeway. Some phenomenal bargains were listed but, according to the ad, these were available only at certain named stores, one of which, astonishingly, was Bloomsbury.

Bloomsbury is in Central London… And this particular Safeway store is quite close to the British Museum - an area where you would normally expect to pay way over the odds for your shopping. It is a fairly mixed area, with a surprisingly large number of Council properties, (some obviously occupied by people as hard up as I used to be and others presumably purchased under the “Right to Buy” legislation), but there are also some hugely expensive properties and
an enormous number of hotels, occupied by tourists of all nationalities… All in all, you would not expect Safeway to have reduced their prices in this particular store just to attract the locals.

I work only a 10 or 15 minute walk from Bloomsbury, so thought I'd investigate…
(Despite my personal “feasibility study” indicating that dragging bag loads of shopping on my weary bus/train/bus route home to the suburbs was not a practical proposition).

On your behalf, I “cased the joint” yesterday and, sure enough, there in Bloomsbury Safeway, they had something called "Cool Deals", which last week, 15th - 21st August, (so, sorry folks, it ended yesterday) were:-

Safeway Medium Chilled Chicken £1.99 (from £4.25)
24 Weetabix 59p (from £1.25)

Farmers Choice Medium Eggs 29p (from 89p - but no good for me as not free range)

and finally,

With jennifer3002 in mind (if she'll go with the opposition rather than stick to Coke)

2-litre bottle of Pepsi (39p from £1.29).

I can only think that this “Cool Deals” onslaught is Safeway's fight-back in the current "Supermarket War".

Several supermarkets have recently opened Central London branches close to my office (whilst closing some of their local branches, heigh ho!).

From my office block:

We now have a new Sainsbury's Central on the corner of Holborn and Kingsway, little more than a two or three minutes walk from the office;

there is a brand new Sommerfield 10 minutes away along Holborn;

and a Tesco Metro in Covent Garden - 10 minutes walk in the opposite direction, – though it should be noted that this particular walk takes much longer if the many Covent Garden street performers and/or tourists get underfoot!

Having wandered up to Bloomsbury to check out Safeway, I staggered back to the office with my three
bottles of Pepsi (this being the due allocation of “maximum 3 per customer”) Who cares that I don’t like cola? - I GOT THREE 39p TWO LITRE BOTTLES! BIG, BIG BARGAIN…

Naturally, I picked up a few other bits and pieces while I was in Safeway but being restricted to those items that I could physically carry, I definitely came out ahead on this little jaunt. (On the strength of which I did this week’s lottery there, the assumption being that “money comes to money” and I’m bound to win!)

My work colleagues already view me as slightly eccentric (particularly when I sing Kinky Friedman songs) but on this occasion they saw me as something closer to pitiful (?) - until they learned that my bulging carrier bag contained REAL BARGAINS… I bet they’ll all be rushing up to Safeway now they know it’s there!

Which means, of course, that Safeway’s advertising has paid off.

I would be interested to know whether my assumption is correct – that these massive loss leader bargains are Safeway’s fight back against local opposition, and that is why the really BIG offers are only in certain stores? - Are you there, missbrowneyedgirl? Can your flatmate enlighten us on this one?


Me?

I do my main shop at Morrison’s, in their South of England Flagship Store.

But that’s another story and/or opinion…

Glug, glug.

Perhaps Pepsi’s not so bad.

Glug.

Summary: