I was a supermarket manager for 21 years & there’s 5 types of customers we hate – yellow sticker ‘vultures’ are up there
A SUPERMARKET manager has revealed the five common types of customers staff hate.
From yellow sticker vultures to those who are too slow at packing, Nick, who was a supermarket manager for 21 years before recently getting out of the ‘game’, has now revealed all.
On an episode of the Joe Marler’s Things People Do podcast, the ex-supermarket employee opened up on shoplifters, checkout races and fights in the reduced aisle.
Nick, who has worked for a variety of supermarkets over his career, including Aldi and Lidl, explained that not only would people often have fights in the car park, but customers had even gone as far to accuse him of lying and hiding food.
Chatting to Joe Marler and Tom Fordyce, Nick revealed all on his retail career as he explained: “I worked for 16 years in one supermarket.
“I started when I was doing my A-Levels, classic, I needed some money to go out with my mates.
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“Started part-time, then went full-time and did a managerial programme, so I started to work my way up the ranks.
“When I left 16 years later, I was a Store Manager.”
‘Ridiculous’ shoplifters
Nick explained that there’s five common types of customers staff hate - the first of which is shoplifters.
He claimed that shoplifters were a daily occurrence when he worked in retail, as he added: “In terms of how many we caught, I’d say one a day, it depends where I was. The amount we don’t catch? Ridiculous.
“In bigger supermarkets, there’s less security guards, there’s lots of little hiding spots where there’s no cameras, people go in there, take stuff with them.
“The professionals have got ways of taking tags off things very discreetly.”
When it comes to the items stolen most frequently, Nick continued: “It’s changed over the years. I think these days, most people nick stuff to sell, whereas before it was to steal stuff for their own good and the stuff that they could use.
“It’s now branded stuff, alcohol, clothes.
“The German discounters, they don’t stock a lot of branded stuff. They tend to limit the amount of this stuff they put on the shelves, as that’s the stuff shoplifters go for.
“There was one occasion in one of the stores I was working in in London, we caught a guy with a massive tub of Vanish down his pants. He tried to get out with that and we caught him.
“That’s what people do, they steal to sell it on.”
Rude and loud customers
Not only this, but supermarket employees can’t stand ‘difficult’ customers too.
When it comes to dealing with annoying customers, Nick shared: “I’ve always been the one who’s had to come down and deal with the s**t.
“When it kicks off, if there’s a customer being rude, being loud, being aggressive, a lot of the time it was a guy being loud and aggressive to customer service staff.
Why are retailers closing stores?
RETAILERS have been feeling the squeeze since the pandemic, while shoppers are cutting back on spending due to the soaring cost of living crisis.
High energy costs and a move to shopping online after the pandemic are also taking a toll, and many high street shops have struggled to keep going.
The high street has seen a whole raft of closures over the past year, and more are coming.
The number of jobs lost in British retail dropped last year, but 120,000 people still lost their employment, figures have suggested.
Figures from the Centre for Retail Research revealed that 10,494 shops closed for the last time during 2023, and 119,405 jobs were lost in the sector.
It was fewer shops than had been lost for several years, and a reduction from 151,641 jobs lost in 2022.
The centre's director, Professor Joshua Bamfield, said the improvement is "less bad" than good.
Although there were some big-name losses from the high street, including Wilko, many large companies had already gone bust before 2022, the centre said, such as Topshop owner Arcadia, Jessops and Debenhams.
"The cost-of-living crisis, inflation and increases in interest rates have led many consumers to tighten their belts, reducing retail spend," Prof Bamfield said.
"Retailers themselves have suffered increasing energy and occupancy costs, staff shortages and falling demand that have made rebuilding profits after extensive store closures during the pandemic exceptionally difficult."
Alongside Wilko, which employed around 12,000 people when it collapsed, 2023's biggest failures included Paperchase, Cath Kidston, Planet Organic and Tile Giant.
The Centre for Retail Research said most stores were closed because companies were trying to reorganise and cut costs rather than the business failing.
However, experts have warned there will likely be more failures this year as consumers keep their belts tight and borrowing costs soar for businesses.
The Body Shop and Ted Baker are the biggest names to have already collapsed into administration this year.
“Then you get the customers who just want to moan about stuff. COVID was crazy in supermarkets, people were a******s. People were bad, really aggressive.
“It was crazy, 21 years in supermarkets, I’ve never seen anything like it.
“We were only allowed 30 to 50 people in the store at the time, but people would be queuing, getting aggressive, getting angry.
“They’d go into the store and there’s nothing on the shelves.”
Nick then recalled a situation whereby a female customer accused him of hiding chicken, as he confessed: “I remember one situation, I didn’t keep my cool.
I think since COVID, the abuse towards retail staff has got worse. It’s bad
Nick
“A customer came up to me and accused me of hiding chicken out the back. I was working with my store manager and they started having a go at her first.
“She started having a go at my store manager so stepped in. I said ‘there’s a pandemic, there’s panic shopping, everywhere’s running out of stuff’ and she said ‘you’re lying, you’ve got chicken out the back’. She did not believe me.
“I was getting more and more angry, to the point where a couple of customers calmed me down.”
Despite this, Nick confirmed: “In general, customers are alright, you get your usuals, you get your regulars, they’re quite nice.”
However, he shared: “I think since COVID, the abuse towards retail staff has got worse. It’s bad. I took myself away from it a bit over the years.”
‘Fight night’ customers
In addition to customers who get loud and aggressive, Nick also explained that the employees can’t stand the customers who partake in drunken ‘fight nights’ at stores.
He revealed: “When I was a night manager, Thursdays and Fridays we called ‘fight night’ because every Thursday and Friday it would kick off in the store.
There were fights, there's been all sorts over reductions, it’s ridiculous
Nick
“People come in, they’ve been on a night out, they’re p****d up, but they just wanted to kick off and cause aggro.
“I remember once we were out in the car park, a load of staff, and a load of blokes were fighting. It was crazy, the police turned up.”
Slow customers
If that wasn’t bad enough, Nick shared that slow customers would get on employees’ nerves too.
Why do Aldi and Lidl have such fast checkouts
IF you’ve ever shopped in Aldi or Lidl then you’ll probably have experienced its ultra-fast checkout staff.
Aldi’s speedy reputation is no mistake, in fact, the supermarket claims that its tills are 40 per cent quicker than rivals.
It’s all part of Aldi’s plan to be as efficient as possible - and this, the budget shop claims, helps keep costs low for shoppers.
Efficient barcodes on packaging means staff are able to scan items as quickly as possible, with the majority of products having multiple barcodes to speed up the process.
It also uses “shelf-ready” packaging which keeps costs low when it comes to replenishing stock.
If staff didn't scan items fast enough, Nick admitted: “[Employees] are getting a b******ing for not going fast enough.”
As a result, rather than wasting time packing, Nick stressed: “There’s a packing bench. Lob it into your trolley and get out of the way, to the packing bench and then sort yourself out.”
Yellow sticker ‘vultures’
But even worse than that, Nick opened up on the drama that would regularly occur in the reduced aisle.
He explained: “The fresh stuff that’s got a sell-by date, if it’s on today’s date, it needs to be marked down.
When do supermarkets put out yellow-sticker bargains?
The time supermarkets reduce their products vary across stores.
Here's a rough supermarket-by-supermarket guide:
Aldi
Aldi uses a red sticker to show reductions on fresh products such as bread, meat, fruit and vegetables.
This is when they have reached the last day of shelf life.
Red stickered items are most commonly found at opening and closing times.
M&S
Reduction times can vary from store to store but is most likely to occur near closing time.
Asda
Asda told that yellow stickers are applied twice a day - in the morning and evening.
Co-op
Co-op told The Sun its reduced-to-clear prices are generally applied about four hours before the store closes.
Lidl
Lidl has a similar procedure to Asda and Aldi with reductions twice a day.
However individual stores may opt to reduce prices throughout the day.
Morrisons
Shoppers online have said that Morrisons does the best bargains first thing in the morning.
However, the store told Which? that there are no specific times for yellow sticker price cuts.
Sainsbury's
Sainsbury's told The Sun it's at the store manager's discretion whether to offer discounts.
However, shoppers have reported that the best deals are in the evening from 6pm.
Tesco
Tesco has said there is no specific time for reduction, but again most people found that prices were reduced from 6pm.
Waitrose
As with most of the other stores, Waitrose shoppers have said the best reductions are found before closing.
However, the store stated that there is no specific time for yellow stickers to be applied.
“I think they mark it down like three times a day, so first thing in the morning they might mark it down by 20% hoping that it will sell, then halfway through the day 50%, and then they might do a final reduction and knock it down to silly money, like 5p or 10p.”
Nick shared that customers would have fights and would get rowdy when trying to stock up on bargains, as he concluded: “But it got quite rowdy. It got to the point where the guys doing the reductions would do them out the back, in the warehouse, because they were getting swamped by customers.
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“It’s the same people most nights and then the person doing the reductions would get to the double doors, push the trolley out, and people are like vultures. That was the safest way for them.
“There were fights, there's been all sorts over reductions, it’s ridiculous.”