Sainsbury's can be found at the corner of the High Street and Palmerstone Road, where the latter is called Willow Walk.

Those who have read my other blogs on this site will have noticed that I do not rate this store as highly as people might expect. This is not just because they engage in criminal activities like price rigging, because there are other local retailers like ASDA which do the same.

I do not wish to appear a hypocrite so must admit that I shop here regularly, but I do so selectively . I am quite clear when I do so that they do not always represent good value for money. They also have some expert psychological techniques being employed to ensure the maximum spend they can from their customers. Despite the spin, (Sainsbury's Fresh Ideas Spring 2008 magazine has an article on page 92 suggesting shoppers should 'spend time researching prices on the High Street' ) they do not really believe in competition or passing on value to their customers. If they did, they would be either a lot, lot cheaper or they would have a much wider range of products to choose from. This is particularly so up the quality range. Preferably they could manage both. As Fresh Ideas says - 'Its a competitive market out there, and you can make significant savings'.

Instead, they only pretend to be competitive on price, while actually really only trying to match Tescos (the nearest one of any substance is miles away; their closest rival from the big four chains is ASDA), and since their refurbishment they seem to have fewer goods to chose from: Their delicatessen, meat and fish offers compare poorly when local alternatives such as Parson's, Terry's, High Quality Halal Meat, N&A Fishmongers, HMS Bazaar or even ASDA is considered. Where East and South East Asian foods are concerned, the offers are frankly an embarrassment compared to the riches of Orientex.

Where they are impressive is in their bakery, which the local ASDA is nothing like as good as. Here the range is impressive. But even this is not a place which can't be beaten on price and quality by competitors like the Turkish Shop, and niche bakeries, like Yildrim Bakery and Goldring's, opposite their entrance.

In the fruit and vegetable department, almost anybody can beat them on the market. The market nationally, appears to me to have been distorted by some of the activities of Sainsbury's staff, who have allegedly also enriched themselves by exploiting opportunities made possible by their business practices. In our local shop, the vegetable department was moved away from the entrance (the shopping psychologists thus trying to dissociate buying these items in their shop from the genuinely competitive 'market' experience outside). They hide the rotten nature of their deals by quoting their prices of otherwise similar items variably in imperial and metric measure or packaged to make it hard to make or recall a clear price comparison. They are most regularly exposed as failing to offer value by the Turkish shop, so a few comparisons as at 4 March 2008:

                                                                        Turkish Shop             Sainsbury's

3 straight cucumbers,                                    ₤1                               ₤2.04 (++Up 9.7%)

tomatoes (on the vine)                    59p per lb (++Up 20%)                ₤7.16 per kilo (++Up 4%)

clementines                                        49p per lb (++Up 8%)                Was 90p per lb.

These are now sold by Sainsburys at 189p per  bag (18.6p per fruit) or, 249p per bag   (31.1p per fruit, buy one get one free).+     
                                                                                                   
3 iceberg lettuces                                          100p                              180p

*1 Kilo = 2.2046lb, 1lb = 0.4556 Kilos.
++Comparison with 16 Nov 2007 prices, recorded by Technomist.
+ Price comparison impossible without a Phd in mathematics and knowing how much an individual clementine weighed in Nov 2007.

The refurbished shop has expanded into household accessories, adult and kid's clothes, electrical, DIY, books, DVDs and even TVs.

Opinion is divided as to whether their poorly kept secret desires to move away to a site on the other site of the railway line from St James's Street to Walthamstow Central would be a good or a bad thing. At one level, I can see how they might want to move: they could have a bigger site away from the High Street. This would enable them to pretend to compete with ASDA and Tesco without their inability to compete on price or choice with the local market and shops being so obvious.

Sainsbury's could then rely on a combination of changed parking arrangements, sophisticated marketing, the psychological manipulation of people through their shops, consumer ignorance and inertia to keep their business going instead of improving their offers to the people of Walthamstow. The effect of such a move, unless regeneration plans are carried through very carefully, could gradually mean that footfall on the High Street would drop and many successful local businesses would suffer, as, ultimately, would consumers.