Supermarket Update

While some covid19 restrictions relating to home visits have been eased in New South Wales, supermarkets are still doing their best to maintain social distancing and to stop customers product hoarding by placing limits on the amounts they can buy.

Supermarkets have also introduced a policy to allow only a certain number of customers to shop at one time. At first I was worried about having to queue for half an hour before I could begin shopping, but whenever I’ve been to my local supermarket over the past month there haven’t been enough customers for queues to form.

These are some of the floor stickers to help customers queue at the supermarket entrance and at checkouts.

Staff have been standing at the entrance, ready to wipe down trolley handles using antiseptic wipes. If staff aren’t there, an antiseptic wipe dispenser is available for customers to wipe down the handles themselves.

Information about social distancing protocols are posted throughout the supermarket.

These stickers can be found at the beginning and end of aisles.

Signs about product limit updates are attached to shelves at regular intervals.

Here are some of the limits.

If customers see any of these items they need to decide if they should grab the maximum they’re allowed, because the items might not be available next shop. Sometimes unpopular brands are the only ones populating the shelves and they’re usually more expensive than the brands customers would normally buy.

One week an expensive legume pasta was the only pasta variety left. I bought a packet and understood why no one was keen to buy it. In spite of me cooking it for far longer than the recommended cooking time, it was chewy and a bit tasteless. The next week there were more pasta varieties on the shelves and I could return to my old brand.

At the self-serve checkout every second checkout has been closed to help customers maintain social-distancing.

If a customer accidentally tries to purchase more than the allowed amount of a product, the checkout machine has been programmed to reject the item and the customer will need to call over a shop assistant to delete the item before the checkout machine can start working again. The shop assistant than takes the item away.

A few weeks ago I saw a customer at the self-service checkout scanning what appeared to be twenty boxes of panty liners. The shop assistant didn’t seem to mind because there’s no restriction on the amount of panty liner packets a customer can buy.

At the beginning of the lockdown, if you were feeling tired before or after shopping you could sit on the blue crosses on the bench. You can’t now because this area of has been cordoned off, corralling customers to use a difference entrance.

These measures seem to be working. Australia has been flattening the exponential coronavirus curve, and while the supermarket shelves are still partially empty, customer purchasing options have increased exponentially.