Tesco and Sainsbury’s launch new measures to help shoppers during coronavirus outbreak

Sainsbury’s and Tesco are bringing in a number of new measures to help address issues arising from the coronavirus outbreak.

Tesco is introducing a storewide restriction of three items per customer on every product line and is removing multi-buy promotions.

It is also temporarily closing all meat, fish, deli counters and salad bars to free up staff time to restock shelves.

In addition, the supermarket is encouraging customers who shop online or via click and collect to instead do their shopping in-store. This will free up more delivery slots for elderly and vulnerable customers as well as those who are self-isolating.

The supermarket is also giving elderly customers priority access for shopping in-store between 9am and 10am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Meanwhile, Sainsbury’s is reserving the first shopping hour in its stores for elderly and vulnerable customers.  It is also helping them to have better access to shopping for food online by giving customers over 70 or those with a disability priority access to online delivery slots.

For online customers who are able to travel to its stores, Sainsbury’s is operating an expanded click and collect service. The company is significantly increasing the number of collection sites across the UK to enable shoppers to pick up their online orders in store car parks.

In addition, Sainsbury’s is closing its in-store cafes and meat, fish and pizza counters to free up warehouse and lorry capacity for products that customers really need. The move will also create more time for store staff to replenish stock on shelves.

It is also restricting customers to buying a maximum of three of any grocery product and a maximum of two on the most popular products such as  toilet paper, soap and UHT milk.

Source:  The Retail Bulletin