Waitrose v Marks and Spencers
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Which store do you prefer and why ? I shop at Waitrose as the customer service is excellent and the food quality is high
I don't really shop at M & S at all but often go into Waitrose, they regularly send me vouchers, their free coffee is awesome and the free paper can be handy especially if it has a £10 off Lidl voucher which the Daily Mail occasionally does. On the rare occasion that I've gone in M&S and bought a reduced meal the quality has often been exceptionally high as good as many restaurants, lasagne, cannelloni etc as good as waitrose is I don't think they are quite as good. Much of the Lidl processed/prepared food is garbage in comparison to either but not all. My favourite supermarket is Tesco as my local store is huge and you can get such a wide range of products including exceptionally cheap products plus a huge amount of offers. Their finest food can be very good too which I occasionally get if on offer or reduced. The one thing I hate about my Tesco is their short life reductions are pathetic, it's like 10% off the full price, often you are better off with promotional offers than their short life reductions. Other Tesco stores seem to offer bigger reductions on short life products. I like Lidl's 30% off standard reduction rate which Tesco should adopt because often their short life reductions don't move at all and then when they are almost to the point of un-sellable they reduce them heavily.
Anyway I'd put the Tesco Finest range up there with Waitrose and Marks and Spencers but then Finest range prices are quite similar.
I mainly shop in Waitrose because it’s convenient but I love and prefer some of M&S ready meals. M&S still don’t cater for a full family shop in my opinion.
I very rarely step foot in marks these days and sadly our Waitrose is 15 plus miles away. I probably would pop in if it were nearer as I quite often see the odd bargain advertised there.
I have more m&s stores near me, so i often shop there. If they had more waitrose shops around, i‘d shop there more. Both have good quality products, but I only buy bits and pieces, as I find them too expensive to do big shops in them
Waitrose has this perception that they are expensive but if you shop savvy in there you will find bargains and good offers. A lot of products are also cheaper than other stores. But overall you are paying for quality food, clean stores and great service. Also they have wider aisles so less congestion.
I think the layout varies by store, the Crewkerne store close to me has wide aisles but the Sherborne and Poundbury stores are more pokey. As for prices Waitrose can be competitive and do offers but personally I go in intending to buy just the offers and short life reductions. If I want a wide range of low cost products I find Tesco, Lidl and Aldi better, obviously Tesco also have a large amount of higher price options but maintain a wide range of low price options even if they do hide them away on the shelves, right at the bottom etc, Stockwell etc.
One good thing about Waitrose is they do try to source a high amount of UK goods which helps our economy, I think the only stores that have higher UK sourced products is the Jacks stores which I don't have around here. The main reason for our current austerity and crisis in the NHS etc is our large trade deficit causing a huge amount of borrowing. It was 1.8 trillion at the beginning of the year and there is about £60,000 of public sector debt for every single income tax payer in the UK. If you send all your income abroad it's no surprise if you destroy public services like the NHS etc and the people you love can't get good quality medical care. So for me there is a feel good factor to buying from Waitrose and I do try to buy UK sourced products where possible, I try to be a little pro-active in helping our economy because I see so many around me who wreck the economy with their spending yet seem to be the same people that complain about failing services and the state of the NHS. People who expect so much from others but expect nothing from themselves.
I prefer Waitrose, because the essential range is affordable and it is great. Also they have branded products to choose from. The vegetables are always nice and taste much better....
M&S has some very great things...but some of their products do not taste good....like blood orange juice and the small chocolate fudge cake....and I was shocked, because it is more expensive than to get it from other supermarket, so expected better quality.
Must admit sometimes I find M & S food a bit too rich, for example Christmas puddings, they do versions with a lot of interesting content and flavours but for Christmas puddings I actually prefer the simpler cheap Christmas puddings. One of the nicest I've had was a basic Tesco version flavoured with cider. Saying that I had some M&S dundee cake once and it was amazing.
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