Lately I’m seeing many new supermarkets named Lotus’s Go Fresh. The older Tesco-Lotus Express shops (shop=convenience) are still around but these newer ones are small supermarkets offering fresh vegetables, meat and fish.
Does anyone know if all the Tesco-Lotus shops will eventually become transformed into these newer supermarkets? It’s confusing because this new naming convention makes the tagging of these shops tricky. We now have:
Because most of my mapping of these shops is done on the fly with photographic images that I geolocate in JOSM with the help of a trace. I don’t actually visit them. So I wonder if ALL Lotus’s Go Fresh Markets offer the same sort of thing, that is, are they all to be tagged with shop=supermarket, or might some of them be better tagged with shop=convenience?
Thanks to the pandemic, I have not yet visited such a shop. So I can’t comment much on their selection.
What makes things worse is that to my understanding they re-branded last year after buying back shares from Tesco and are called now Lotus’s. The small one in Doi Saket did not put new signs the last time we had been there, but it might be a polity to change all names.
I guess (!) that the big supermarkets will be called Lotus’s and the small (express) ones will get the “go fresh” label. This seems to be in line with the table in the Thai language wikipedia. I suggest that we change the tagging of the markets as soon as they change name on the ground.
That is then also a good idea to verify that shops are still around and not merged together with 7-Eleven nearby as they are both CP now.
I guess (!) that the big supermarkets will be called Lotus’s and the small (express) ones will get the “go fresh” label
And there is part of the issue I’m talking about. The Lotus’s Go Fresh shops are supermarkets by most definitions but are typically much smaller than the large Tesco-Lotus supermarkets (those with a parking lot).
I reckon I’ll just tag the Lotus’s Go Fresh shops as shop=supermarket while keeping the smaller Tesco-Lotus shops, including the “Express” shops, that have been around for years as shop=convenience.
I just looked up recent street side imagery.
The lotus express store in Doi Saket is now a Lotus’s Go Fresh. And next door Seven is still there.
This branch always had fresh vegetables and meat.
I feel that the difference between convenience is more the size and anount of products. Convenience is focusing on the everyday basics.
In a supermarket you have a larger selection of brands available.
Often convenience stores have also longer opening hours. Often 24/7, while supermarket closes at 22.
I would vote against supermarket tagging. But ss long as the brand is tagged, i don’t care that much. Both are available on the map and by the brand I have a good idea of what to expect.
Well, the several Lotus’s Go Fresh shops in my neighborhood (Nong Hoi) are definitely supermarkets. They are fairly large and sell a wide variety of canned and packaged foods and other stuff, most importantly, including fresh meat, fish, and vegetables. They are smaller than the big Tesco-Lotus Supermarkets for sure, but the range of stuff they offer vastly exceeds what you will see in a “normal” 7-11 (Even new 7-11s are being built bigger in my area).
I dunno. I think shop=supermarket is the best tagging for the Lotus’s Go Fresh markets. It makes sense to me. But others may disagree.
The wiki stated “One suggestion for distinguishing between a supermarket and a convenience shop, is that a supermarket is large enough to use trolleys.”
I see a trolley at Lotus’s Go Fresh, so should it be shop=supermarket?
This goes in line with the size I mentioned earlier.
So yes, if that specific branch is so huge that people typically use a trolley and not the basket also because you typically shop larger then it qualifies as supermarket.
The other extreme is the local corner shop where you only buy single articles, just because you run out and it is convenient to pick it up there.