After signing up with BT I was sent £50 worth of Sainsbury’s vouchers. We rarely shop at them and to be honest I wanted to use them as a treat for myself, rather than simply buying toilet rolls and Fruit and Fibre.

Looking on their website, they sell Google Nexus 7 tablets – something I’ve had my eye on for a while. With £50 off it’s an even better bargain than it was already. Sadly, and like many other “bricks and mortar” retailers, you can’t use their gift cards online. But, they do have a “click and collect” service. Brilliant – I can order it online, have it sent to a shop and part buy it with my cards. Erm, no. They expect you to pay on the site.

So, last week, I set about visiting my 4 biggest local Sainsbury’s. They sold flat screen TVs, radios, iPods and mobile phones. But no tablets. Running out of ideas, I contacted Sainsbury’s customer services asking them if there was a solution to my predicament  After a number of days waiting I got a response…

Thanks for your email.  I’m sorry you’re unable to use your gift cards online to purchase the Google Nexus 7 tablet.  I understand this would be frustrating as you’ve been unable to find one at four different stores.

We want customers shopping experience with us to be as convenient as possible.  We do this by offering a wide selection of products both in store and online.  At the moment you cannot currently spend our gift cards online and that’s something we are looking to change soon.

Having checked all stores in the Nottingham area there is unfortunately none that currently have the Google Nexus 7 tablet.  The stores may get more stock in but we have no information about this.  I’m afraid on this occasion there aren’t any other options for using the gift cards towards to tablet until they come back in to store.

I’m sorry I’ve not been able to help you on this occasion but if you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact us back.

Whoa. This hasn’t helped me at all (other than confirming that local stores don’t stock it). Do they actually sell these in-store? If so, which one is likely to stock it (to save my searching around them all)? Any chance they can give me an idea when it will be in stock? Personally, I suspect they only sell these via the website – in which case asking me to keep an eye out for them in store is a fruitless exercise.

Ironically, when you send them an email you get an automatically generated response, which includes this line…

We want to ensure you receive great service, so we need to investigate your query a little further.  We’ll be back in touch as soon as possible.

Such a shame that they didn’t bother investigating my query. Anyway, I responded, putting the previous points to them. Their reply basically went over exactly what they stated before… they couldn’t guarantee stock, they’re always changing inventory, yadda, yadda, yadda. At the end was this gem…

I’ve checked our stock list which shows Mansfield store, Nottingham Road, NG18 1BW, currently have two in stock

That would be a 40 minute journey (on a good day) each way. No. At least this confirms that they do stock it in stores (answered in a very roundabout way) but they still haven’t answered whether any of my local stores will stock it at any point (i.e. is it me worth keeping an eye out for it). I put this to them, again.

I can appreciate you’re unable to make an 80 mile round trip to buy the Google Nexus 7 tablet from our Mansfield store.  I’ve noted this product is only available in a limited number of stores, and the only other one showing on our stock systems in our Fosse Park store, Grove farm Triangle, Enderby, Leicester LE19 1WT.  This is showing one available in store.

Fosse Park. 35 minutes each way. Really, Sainsburys?

So, my original mail asked 2 questions…

1. Do you stock Nexus 7 tablet in your stores or is it a web-only product?
2. Which of my local stores if most likely to sell it – i.e. which one should I keep an eye on?

During the entire exchange they answered the first one indirectly and never answered the second. But they did twice tell me about stores at least a 70 minute round-trip away which had stock.

It just so happened that sometime after this “chat” I visited one of my local Sainsbury’s stores to find the Nexus 7 available – well, lots of empty boxes with no indication of how I get the contents. I took it to customer services and waited at least 10 minutes while “someone from the office” got one. I was told it was the last one (I pointed out how many empty boxes they had on display and suggested they might think of now removing them. They seemed uninterested).

And that was that. I had a Nexus 7, despite Sainsbury’s best efforts for me not to.