Actually this makes a bit of sense, but customers will pitch fits. No more giving away product samples anymore. Its official.
12 replies (most recent on top)
I really don’t understand the point. What are the food and salad bars except passive self-serve stations? The new policy is 100% pointless if the goal is to reduce disease transmission.
The only thing I can see it doing is reducing sales, especially in the specialty department where any cheese we sample moves probably twice as fast as those we don’t.
Guests filthy finger licking & enjoying free meals from the self serve bars, examining hard boiled eggs & other salad bar "tastings" and worse of all, sampling with silverware & returning used spoons next to clean utensils. We gag all day long at regulars filling up with their bare hands. We show ATL's & they will not take action to protect our guests. NEVER eat samples or buy from bars at WF. Mgmt refuses to address these filthy guest practices
To the person that said sampling increased sales by 425%... It also increases the amount of cheap, disgusting people that shop at your store by the same made-up, outrageous %.
Parents let their kids stick their fingers in the bulk bins...then you observe the parents and realize where they got their manners. I used to take the sample domes down as soon as I got to work in the afternoons after seeing what people were doing. I saw it all and probably you have too...Like people trying something then PUTTING IT BACK in the dome. Or just munching on expensive pine nuts and dropping the remaining pound in the bulk bag somewhere random like between cans of beans. Then there were the hot bar grazers. Have to laugh when the health department is obsessed with everything we do in food prep, while turning a blind eye to people's disgusting behavior out on the floor. Why aren't they handing out tickets to grazers who stick their saliva-coated fingers into the trays like it's their own personal buffet? NEVER eat from any kind of bar and be careful with bulk bins and bulk honey taps too. Like I said, we saw it all.
Never buy anything from the olive bars at any WFM! Old people are constantly sticking their filthy old hands in there and then spitting the pits out all over the store!
we booted a customer who only came in to eat samples and never buy anything..he would make rounds and pretend he was buying dog food..he did this for years til management got totally fed up with him..now he does the same thing at our competitors down the road..
At my store(SO CHP)Customers expect to be given free products.
The guests will continue to help themselves to bulk samples and anything that's available such as hot bar, salad bar, cookie bar & candy. Store leadership won't approach guests & ask them to not put their bare hands into the food. Wouldn't want to upset a guest! TM's get written up for getting involved with these matters. This is germy & causes shrink. What now?
our store STL is so paranoid about "wowing" stuff...he wont let anybody do it but him....and if a customer comes in already knowing about that program he grills them in the grocery aisles....lol...
active and passive sampling is still ongoing and fine, you're not allowed to just write off products to customers so they can "sample" at home. We would have a woman come in EVERY week and ask to sample something..."no, not here, i want to take the whole thing home and try it" good riddance to customers like her!
what other company just writes off entire boxes or bags of product? none. and now neither does whole foods
Active sampling is shown to increase sales by as much as 425%. Passive sampling is no slouch either. So, aside from the fact that its drastically changing the store experience, its just bad business!
So.....no more "WOW"ing?!