Big Y — Local services in Chicopee

I really wanted to give this review four or five stars; since I have had many years of great experiences here. However, I have noticed over the past couple years, that things are slowly slipping, causing me to shop elsewhere, more often. This is a very clean store! It is obvious upon entering, that management takes pride in the condition of the property! The place is sparkling clean, and I like that! I will also say, that the majority of the staff is very friendly and helpful. The one exception, being the meat department, where I am met with lots of “attitude” whenever I have a question or request, and I don’t appreciate it, AT ALL (- 1 star)! The store manager here is VERY friendly, and her own personal customer service skills are truly extraordinary! I’m hoping some of that starts rubbing off on the meat department staff! Big Y sales promotions lately, are terrible! I realize that this is more reflective of the company as a whole, and may be more of a corporate issue, than an issue about this particular location, but since this is the location I frequent the most, I can’t ignore it! The span of time, between sales on certain products seems to be increasing, sometimes you have to wait four or five weeks before items go on sale again, when that gap used to be much shorter! This is due to their new “lower pricing” strategy, I’m sure! The issue is, that the “lower price” on certain items, is not nearly as low as the sale price of that item, when it finally does go on sale. So, by widening the span between an item going on sale, they’ve got you buying it at a higher price, more often, despite touting their “lower price savings”. Also, entire categories of food, such as cheeses or sour cream, or tuna, or ketchup, etc., have weeks where not one brand is on sale! In the past, they would have at least one, maybe two brands within a food category on sale. Example: if Starkist Tuna wasn’t on sale that week, Bumble Bee or Big Y brand would be, so at least you could get some brand of tuna on sale, with the new sales/pricing strategy, some weeks you look at the tuna section, and NO brands are on sale! The same goes for cheeses in the dairy section, etc. They have also cut many name brand flavors, sizes, and varieties of certain products that are still being manufactured, to make more shelf space for comparable “Big Y” brand items. I’m seeing less and less space dedicated to the full range of product offerings of certain name brands. It’s frustrating, because sometimes you want a smaller size of a particular item, that you still CAN find at a competitor, but it’s not available at Big Y. An example is Cream of Wheat Original cereal. They used to have two sizes, at Big Y now, you can only get the larger size, but other stores and online, still have the smaller size box available. They are forcing you to spend more, on an item, by not offering the smaller size. I always liked to get ALL of my grocery shopping done at once, at Big Y, but now, with all of these changes, I have to make several stops, at their competition, to get the items they no longer choose to...

Up until yesterday, 10/14/24 between 1030-11AM, I had nothing bad to say about this location. I started going to this one because of lousy treatment I received in South Hadley. I’m at this location fairly often, and unless I’m shopping a big list, I usually go through self check out. More often than not I pick up more stuff than I have bags for, and need to purchase an extra at checkout. I knew I didn’t have enough bags and picked up a cold bag on the way to the self checkout. As I always do, I scanned the bag first, put in my phone number for the Big Y card, and carried on. I did not pull the tag off the bag because there’s no trash can under the register, and I don’t want to keep the trash on me, I usually just pull those tags off at home. At one point there was a brief change in who was overseeing self checkout, and a taller older woman with dark hair was in the area. She came up behind me and started to hassle me about the tag on the bag, I said I don’t pull them off right away and it was the first thing I scanned. This woman takes it upon herself to pull the tag off my bag (do not touch my items unless it’s necessary) and continue to hassle me about whether or not I scanned it. I firmly said IT WAS THE FIRST THING I SCANNED. I wasn’t about to scroll through the scans so she could see either, despite that request being made. I left, went to Starbucks and back to the store to complain because at this point I was hot about being accused of stealing. I spoke to a manager named Jim and he was very kind, I showed him my receipt and explained what had happened. I will not be talked to like I’m a thief, and especially over a $1.99 bag. Jim apologized for that behavior and said he would follow up with the woman in question. He took no info from me and that’s fine, he just gave his word that he would speak to her was enough for me and I trusted that. My guess is she was judging me on my appearance and assumed I must have been up to no good, or maybe she didn’t like that I didn’t pull the tag off, who knows? I was disappointed this happened because I’ve never had this happen in self checkout before, and my store experiences are...

This big y makes me feel so uncomfortable an unwelcome when ever I come here an it’s only been recently I totally understand with the way prices have raised tremendously that people are stealing more but damn I brushed it off for so long an just thought maybe today isn’t the day that the staff isn’t feeling so costumer friendly but it’s everytime I come in from the customers to the staff no one is ever friendly just bland faces and stares they stand at self checkout like nazi police like can I at least get a hello or to the most a fake ass smile but I believe it comes down to the older the lady I believe she’s a manager with a short blond haircut I’ve only encountered her once an try my damnest to avoid her cause she’s never nice an I thought it was me but I watched her interaction with an older customer at the service desk she was asking a question about something an I always say it’s not what you say it’s how you say it an it was just rude as the lady walked off they was laughing in a mocking way quite frankly this place is one of the rudest big y I’ve ever been to rather go to south...