What's with grocery bagging in America/Canada?

[ezzie]

you know, i have a major gripe with plastic bags. i have three large canvas bags that i purchased at the grocery store (i think for about $3 each) and it they are worth every penny. i can fit four plastic bags' worth of items into one singe canvas sack, and i sling them over my shoulder and out the door i go.

no struggling. no taking a cart outside. no ripped plastic bags and broken jars of pasta sauce. no multiple trips to the car once i'm home. no accumulation of plastic bags.

seriously, i don't know why more people don't use the canvas bags.

my other real gripe, and back on topic, is with the baggers, who stare blankly at my canvas bags, and attempt to put the bananas on the bottom, the bread on top of that, and 2 cans of veggies on the very top and call it full. i can almost hear them thinking: "but....it's not plastic...how do i use this?"

i always try to get into a lane that doesn't have a bagger because of this...and because i actually love to bag groceries.

 

[imac/cheese]

At US Military Commissaries, the baggers are not paid employees. They work completely for tips. They bag your groceries and wheel them out to the car for you and load them into your trunk.

 

[osxnewbe]

it5five - If you're looking for canvas bags, you might want to check some hobby stores in your area. I know in our area, both Michael's and Hobby Lobby carry them. My wife picked up a 5 pack of canvas bags for less than $3 one time.

I use them to carry my lunch in and also at the grocery store if I am picking up one or two items.

Our community just started picking up plastic bags as part of our curbside recycling program. Prior to that, I had to drop them off at the locations where they were doing chemical or electronics recycling drop offs....

 

[janey]

FWIW most of my canvas bags came from Stop & Shop a "regular" supermarket in the Boston area...so this is not just a TJ/WFM thing.

yeah I know, just pointing out some stores that sell bags like that. i didn't really see them very often outside of those two and a handful of other markets where I live, nowadays I see them all over the place.

 

[joepunk]

ok, a little off topic but what the hey..

I have yet to use a credit card/debt card to buy foody items. I use cash, which means I have to fumble around for a few second finding the correct change. Well, sometime I feel like the cashier person/others in-line behind me are thinking "what is this? holding up the line a few seconds so he can pay cash".

impatient people some are.

 

[it5five]

it5five - If you're looking for canvas bags, you might want to check some hobby stores in your area. I know in our area, both Michael's and Hobby Lobby carry them. My wife picked up a 5 pack of canvas bags for less than $3 one time.

Thanks. I'll stop by a Michael's before my next grocery store trip.

 

[SpookTheHamster]

There really is no such thing as decent customer service here.

Really? I experienced much worse customer service in most shops when I was in the US. Maybe Americans are just used to getting it easy all the time, so think having to use their own initiative is bad customer service. I work with customers, people complain over here, they complain A LOT, but they do it properly.

In America I noticed most people complain by being very loud to whoever they first come in contact with, even if it's somebody that can't do anything. Here people complain by writing letters or calling people higher up, or at least talking to the manager. That's how you get things done. Americans seem to blame companies for things that either can't be avoided, or are the customer's own fault.

Where I work, if we get a call from head office telling us that a customer is complaining about our store, bad things happen.

Restaurants are the only example of better customer service I found in America, and that could be because the places I've been in America are so random and usually tourist-free that the server is excited to see an English person.

I'll definitely agree that there's less accommodation for cars. But most people don't have to travel as far in this country to reach a supermarket and so will often take public transport, which normally has a dedicated service to the supermarket.

And to somebody else, all Tesco branches now have bins for putting old plastic bags in (from any shop/brand) to be recycled.

 

[dcv]

I ABHOR packing my groceries. I may not abhor it nearly as much if there was a decent effing place and way to do so. You have to stand there being rushed trying to separate the ungodly sticky bags so you can pack in your stuff while the bag you just took ages to open collapses in your hands as you awkwardly pack your stuff. meanwhile, that uneven surface you pack on gets more and more crowded. Then halfway through "that will be £95 please."...

To be honest, I think you just suck at shopping.

LOL, I really do think you must suck at shopping!

I *hate* the small shops that try to pack your stuff for you, all piled into one bag, always haphazardly with the eggs at the bottom and the cucumber breaking through the side of the bag

Put the stuff on the conveyor belt in the correct order for packing to start with, then it won't be such a traumatic experience! Or just order online. Ocado FTW!

 

[yojitani]

<gripe></gripe>

Had to lol at this. This was pretty much my weekly experience at my local Safeway in Holloway aside from the parking (I walked to there). It made no difference whether you asked for time or not.