Here's a sincere request I put to our three larger stores, Tesco, Co-op Station Road and B & M. Next year, when we reach the checkout, stop trying to persuade us to buy some "bargain" we don't want or need.I first came across this practice in W H Smith (not the Rhuthun branch), usually linked to chocolate. You arrive at the payment counter and an assistant asks you whether you'd like such-and-such product at the special price of £n along with your goods.
I noticed it next at B & M in Rhuthun. As a recent example, those purchasing stuff before Christmas will have caught the cashiers trying to persuade you to buy a box of Maltesers for £1.
It has spread to our larger Co-op.
Actually, I have no idea whether cashiers in Tesco repeatedly follow this sharp practice of trying to influence you at the time you are most vulnerable, with your purse or wallet open, when you have but a short time to weigh up the pros & cons of buying this giveaway, when you are under pressure from the queue behind you. This is because I tend to favour the self-service checkouts, preferring the supermarket equivalent of a cash machine to a human bank teller within.
The good thing about supermarkets is that you aren't continually pestered or persuaded. You make your own decisions. Not so these days, when you reach the till, it seems. And if neither the Co-op nor B & M can desist from this annoying, unpleasant and inopportune activity, then the least they can do is provide self-service checkouts of their own.
The only problem would be that because I'm under 21, I would need to go through the ordinary aisle when buying my gin. Here, perhaps Gina might help out.
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Supermarkets