I live up the hill from this location and really was looking forward to it opening, as the closest Sobeys to me previously was the ancient Primrose St store which I would not shop in. This area of Dartmouth has needed a new Sobeys for a long time and I was excited to see this one open.
On my first visit I was impressed. This was a very nice new store, with some things I had not seen in a Sobeys before. I did find myself wondering if the neighborhood would be able to support the in-house coffee roastery, the custom fudge counter, and all of the specialty food items, but it was nice to have the choices.
As I went back week after week, though, I began to notice some troubling things. The service was not what I have come to expect from Sobeys, and the staff were decidedly less friendly than what I find at just about every other Sobeys in the area. I find this odd, as the quality and friendliness of Sobeys staff is what keeps me as a customer compared to their main competition in this market. I generally love the staff at Sobeys, but this crew is different for some reason.
Then I noticed an even more troubling issue. I found continued inconsistencies in their shelf pricing versus what was on file in the POS. This is a basic retail function - a new price file comes from head office, you print new shelf tags, and someone replaces the old with the new. This process seems to be overlooked here far too often. It is especially bad at the deli case, to the point where I had several instances of correspondence with Sobeys customer service people on it. They always assured me the problem was being taken care of, but it never was. It got to the point where I would always carefully watch the item being put on the scale to see if the price that popped up matched what was on the display tag, and often it did not. I also noticed that items I bought regularly at other Sobeys delis were higher-priced at this one. When I pointed that out, the response was, "stores set their own prices". Sorry, but I work in retail, and I know that with very few exceptions, pricing administration in chains is done centrally. I cannot explain why this store had the issue.
Finally about 3 weeks ago, the issue of the tag price not matching the scale price file happened again at the deli. I politely pointed out the error to the young guy serving me, who went to his manager for help since he could not override the scale. She came by, quite gruffly told him to "give it to him for the price of that salami" and then to "pull all those tags and put the prices up". Not a sorry, not any consideration at all, just an attitude that I was the problem. After I checked out I saw her and the store manager in a long conversation. I was going to inject myself in the middle of it, because I was steamed, since this was the 4th or 5th time it had happened in a couple of months, but then thought better of it, so I left.
I have not been back since, and will not return any time soon. This store should be past the growing pains stage, but it still has problems in my experience. I don't know what the problem is exactly, but it all comes down to management. Something seems wrong, and that makes me sad, because I thought it would be great to have a shiny new Sobeys so close. Instead, I am back to shopping at Russell Lake. Sobeys, you blew it on this one. read more
