Stop & Shop — Local services in Granby

ANOTHER UPDATE NOV 22: Another shopping trip. 2nd time ScanIt audited in 2 trips/2 weeks. Last week it was with 3 different things & a $10 cart. The cashier said they do that because it's easier. 🤬

This week, a dozen items $35. Had to check my pickles, soda, cilantro, peppers and mandarins. Another low dollar, low volume basket so audit again.

That's why BigY gets 95% of my grocery dollar! Never a problem there. The Simsbury BigY is great. Clean, we'll laid out, fully stocked, friendly people (today's Stop & Shop auditor rolled her eyes when she saw me come up as "needing assistance"). Never get attitude from Big Y employees. At S&S I figure it's just part of the overall wonderful experience they provide - can't do anything about it except grin & bear it and shop mostly anywhere else.

UPDATE:

A month later and another trip to S&S as hope springs eternal that they'll actually fix things vs just making noises about how they value their customers. But no, another audit. Sigh.

This time a half-dozen items and $25. Most expensive item was probably the box of hot cocoa K-cups. Of course the "checkout assistance required" message popped up. Nice girl comes over to audit the basket. The problem is it requires I have my card (excuse me, but I don't carry it since the app has my info) and walk over to the handheld Scan-It rack and setup the audit. Because a)they can't do that they make it their customer's problem and b) they also can't do it from the phone app so c) what's the point of the phone app. Sorry, but that's really not my problem. If you're not going to fix the algorithm that picks such high risk baskets to audit, you can incur the expense of putting my basket items back on the shelf.

Off to Big-Y down the street, same items, a couple bucks cheaper even! Score one for the local team. Oh, and checkout only required me to scan a QR code on the way out. Automatically charged the card on file. Tech that works. Kudos to Big-Y.

ORIGINAL DECEMBER REVIEW: Another quick trip and another audit at the self-checkout. 2 items. $12. Yeah, that needs an audit. Tired of S&S and whatever their algorithm is that they use for determining who gets audited. It shouldn't be someone who has shopped there for 40 years and who used to work there in fact. It shouldn't be someone who gets audited every few months (one month it was three trips in a row) and never gets found to have missed scanning something. Maybe it ought to be set for infrequent shoppers buying uncharacteristically expensive items. Maybe you ought not treat your customers as if they were thieves. After all we're not the ones making "mistakes" putting price labels on things or not applying coupons or discounts (all of which happens to me more than audits find me forgetting to scan something). Stock shrinkage is an employee problem, not a registered self-checkout customer one.

Thank goodness for Big Y down the street and its Express Checkout where I can just scan the QR code on the way out and don't even have to wait for the self...

I have a lot to unload, but let's just talk about the checkout system. It is the pits. Tap-to-pay causes machines to freeze. Having such a touchy system to weigh groceries AND BAGS causes constant problems. Be careful not to let the scanner see the barcode on produce, because that will warrant yet another visit from the assistant. I tried doing the self scanning for a while, bagging as I go, but I guess they thought I was stealing because I had my bags checked repeatedly. Gave up on that. The coupons they print at the register often fail to scan. In short, checking out is a huge pain if you do it often like I used to. I was a loyal customer and was a little put off when Big Y opened nearby. Stop & Shop implemented some changes to try and keep up . Now I go there about half the time. Gas points almost make it worth it. I save a lot that way. And the pharmacy is wonderful. Also, I love all of the store's hourly staff. I'm not big on posting negative reviews for fear that they will hurt someone's business, but this Stop & Shop really needs to...

08/24/2025 Update. This store continues on its downhill path. Today I needed to pick up a few items. $37+ that I paid by card. I asked the cashier to give me 4 $5 bills for a $20. She refused saying she couldn't. I asked for a manager and she said the register couldn't be opened. Of course she could have if she wanted to but she refused. i do thousands and thousands of dollars of purchases at this store annually and this is their idea of customer service. Additionally as the prices continue to rise the quality of some items, particularly their prepared meals has substantially declined. I had already started to shift my shopping to Big Y and will continue to do so.

The Granby, CT Stop & Shop has been on a continuous downhill slide since the day it opened. The latest - no cashiers on duty at 9:00 pm, Tuesday March 12. I don't need to be taking someone's job away by self-checking out and packing my own bags. And if Stop & Shop is going to require that of me at least give me a meaningful discount. The greed of Stop and Shop is...