Tesco tells cyclist who complained about broken and blocked bike racks outside shop that “working racks are never full” and “not considered high priority”

i-am-furious wrote:

Unfortunately supermarkets like Tesco, their business model is based around overconsumption and the idea of the 'big shop', by forcing customers into a car-centric lifestyle. This increases waste and therefore profits, and goes hand in hand with eliminating cycling from our lives in the last 50 years. That's why they demolished half our town centres with ginormous car parks and put small locals out of businiess. So I'm not at all surprised that managers at Tesco don't give a second thought about anyone who dares to show up on a bike and get a couple of bits, compared to someone in a huge SUV filling it up with stuff that'll end up in the bin.

the USP of the supermarkets used to be pile it high, sell it cheap, using economies of scale to deliver savings, but now I find many products are cheaper in my local corner shop. I don't believe the supermarkets are paying suppliers more, so either they are innefficient or they are exploiting consumers.

Couple of points. Firstly, you quite likely get evil looks because, if it's anything like the shop I work in, customers and staff will have seen bikes left inside full over. This tends not to happen with prams and wheelchairs.

Secondly, the same people whom don't challenge you probably won't challenge anyone else who decides to walk out with the £2k bike, including the £150 of securit.y

Whilst my bike never cost anything like  £2k I used to carry it around shops and never got anything but smiles from staff and fellow customers.  Those shops (Aldi et at al) are now rammed and I don't think I'd get the same smiles.  I just walk to the shops these days, its only 10-15mins from my current place.

I did that once as I didnt have my bike lock on me, and no bike racks to lock to anyway. The shop assitance was exceptionally rude to me about bringing my bike into the empty Coop as she served me, looked on by an obviously shocked mum with her pram that obviously also has wheels that run outside! Prompting me to email a complaint to their head office, who replied obviously couldnt care or less how their customers are spoken to by staff!

Jon_score wrote:

If I was challenged, I would ask what difference do my bike wheels make to those present on a trolley, pram or wheelchair?

To which you could add every customer's footware as well.

I think the difference is the likely point of contact between the wheel and the shop furniture/shelves etc, together with the height and range of any detritus thrown by the rotating wheel.

The typical bicycle wheel will contact much higher up, well above skirting board height, very likely above the height of the lower shelf. Certainly I would look askance at people putting the soles of their shoes in contact with the food shelves, likewise a bicycle wheel. Anything on the sole of a shoe, or the tread of a bicycle wheel, would be unwelcome deposited on a food shelf.

Trolley and most pushchair and wheelchair wheels, certainly the front ones, are much smaller and would not make contact much above skirting board height, likewise people's shoes. Neither would any spatter thrown by those wheels make it up to shelf height.

Thank you for doing that. Appreciate your efforts. 

The manager has to run his store as cheaply as possible and will resist spending money as much as possible. There was one time I was in a DIY store and a bottle leaked acid on my hands. I asked the staff to go to the staff loos to walk my hands and was surprised that they resisted doing this. After insisting that my hands were burning they showed me to the staff loos. They were disgusting, most of the urinals were broken and the toilet cisterns leaking. If the manager hasn't got the money to fix the staff loos, he won't have money for bicycle racks.

I'd be worried about my bike getting damaged by someone ramming a trolley in there.

Then your handle bars will be half inside the trolley bay and get clatted by the trolleys. Moreover I doubt those shoving the trolleys would care much - not their trolley, not their bike.

There's a strategy to it, I lock up at the far end, i.e. on the right of the line in this picture, so that hopefully I'll return before the stock of trolleys starts being replenished, and lean the bike over slightly so the crossbar is nearest the horizontal bar, no part of the bike inside the trolley park area. Never been damaged there yet...

Rendel Harris wrote:

I lock up at the far end, i.e. on the right of the line in this picture, so that hopefully I'll return before the stock of trolleys starts being replenished

I do the same at Aldi & Lidl stores on the occasions I shop there - lock the bike to the end where it won't be disturbed by moving trolleys.

The 2 (new) Aldi stores in Shrewsbury didn't appear to have any bike parking. The Aldi in Bangor opened in 2022 and only has 2 Sheffield-type stands on an island half way across the car park while the Lidl has those dreadful wheel-benders butterfly things. My local Co-Op has ram-raid protection near the front door that are great for securing a bike.

While it may not be high on their agenda a retailer who was making decent provision to encourage cyclists to use their premises would be huge. If I knew that a local store had safe, robust parking then I would be more likely to shop there. Where I last lived Sainsbury's had great parking for about twenty bikes that was covered. Meanwhile Morrison's up the road had three Sheffield Stands with no cover and Tescos had zero. There would be even greater incentive to use a store if they had facilities for cargo bikes or trikes. 

I just think that in a lot of places (that there London excepted maybe) it's still a relatively niche customer base which isn't necessarily going to result in massive increase in custom - those cyclists are probably already coming (whether by bike or car). So you need an interested and enlightened store / regional manager to do it because they believe in it, not necessarily because it's going to increase custom. Might be different where you have a choice of different supermarkets in close proximity in which case it's defo a differentiator.