Asda

I am no longer impressed with Asda’s on line grocery shopping. I liked to shop on line and I recently went on line to do my usual shop and their minimum order was always £25, BUT I was shocked when after ordering between £25−30 worth of food, (which was what I always spent) a sign came up saying that the minimum was £40, I then called them up and was told that it is an experimental trial they are doing in the London areas only, but NO EXPLANATION AS TO WHY. I am really angry about this change especially as it does not say on line that it is an experiment. I think Asda are treating the customers in London SHODDY and UNFAIR and we deserve to be treated better than this. They don’t deserve to have loyal customers if they can be so sneaky.

First I want to start off by letting people know, if you want return something you have bought online from Asda direct /​Asda George, forget it. You can NOT return items in store for a cash /​card refund. It has to be sent back to Asda via collect +.
Also you will not be able to do exchanges, even if they have the exact same item in store (eg if you wanted a bigger size shoes). You can only exchange & return if you bought from Asda in store.
Anyway I never knew this, so I went to Asda Old Kent Road looking for a bigger size of an Asda George item I bought online. They had it but in a different colour. So I thought I could just go to the customer services desk and get a refund, right? Wrong. I was told to go to the Collect + stand type in my order number, collect a ticket a wait. There was a man waiting before me, and when I tell you I waited for 45 mins for someone to come from the Asda George section, it’s no lie. Lord knows how long the other man before was waiting but he got fed up and left like 15 mins before someone finally came. During my 45 min wait I kept going back and forth to the customer service desk to ask if and when someone was going to come down to do my return. The short skinny guy with the drippy wet looking curly perm who usually works on the ‘self service’ checkout decided to get involved and was rude to me, as if I was at fault.
Once I was attended to I was told my order is not coming up on their system so I couldn’t do a return there!!! AFTER A 45 MINUTE + WAIT!!!
So I went to the Peckham Asda where I picked up the delivery initially. Once I got there I was seen really quickly and the lady just sealed the item in returns bag shut, stuck the returns label in it and gave me a receipt. I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT! They didn’t even have to put any information in their system, basically it’s just posting the items back to Asda direct and once they get it they refund me. I could of done this at ANY of the thousands of Collect plus outlets, even the little sweet shop 5 seconds away from my house.
I’m so angry ASDA old kent road didn’t just tell me it can ONLY be returned via collect plus. They obviously are not correctly trained or have no idea this is the case! Also on the receipt/​returns information that came with my delivery, it did not make it clear that returns can only be done via Collect plus.
Customer service at old kent rd Asda is at it’s all time low, it was bad before but now it’s a joke! The new bigger store & refurbishment does NOT mask how terrible the customer service is. The person who went into the Peckham store and sorted out the workers & their customer service in Peckham is really needed in Asda old kent road.

It is what it is. Asda reminds me a lot of Walmart. Their customer service is not the best and I was kind of annoyed by their return policy on bedding.
I purchased a set of pillows in a vacuum sealed bag and even though I have not pierced through the plastic or opened the pillows at all, they would not let me return it. I understand that this is for the hygienic safety of their consumers if the product was opened. It is also annoying that a different employee told me (on the day I originally purchased the pillows) that I could return it if the packaging was unopened.
Perhaps, this is me going on and on about a pair of pillows, but it’s quite frustrating when you are dealing with apathetic employees who are all following different rules.

Much like any other supermarket. The staff are nice, avoid the meat, it seems to be labelled with a random end date that is invariably 5 – 10 day after it has gone off.

So the coin has to sides.
Asda could be described as a hypermarket — they sell pretty much everything but maybe the main focus is on groceries. I like the price of the products they sell — especially their brand ones. You can save a huge amount of money shopping products here but as I told the coin has two sides so you will have to sacrifice quality saving money.
Their brand products are of poorer quality than Tesco’s, for example, but still if your income is below the average this is a great place to go and safe money :)

Store visit: Thursday 31 May, 22:02
Car parking spaces are tight, oh actually I think was the idiot who parked so close next to my car that I couldn’t get in through the right door.
Hmm anywayok there are good deals to be had if you can forgive the longest queues to pay you will ever have to encounter in ANY supermarket, incompetent staff as mentioned previously by Happy Moose Drinker, and my pet hate and what ASDA have seemed to get wrong EVERY TIME I visit incorrect prices on supposedly discounted products.
During this visit it was the cereal bars that annoyingly scanned up at full price, and of course at that time of night well of course the customer service desk won’t be open, and all the staff on the tills are so poorly trained that even suspending transactions require another person to intervene. It sucks big time.
I used to visit pretty regularly two years ago and have been cutting visits back to once every six months and mainly because I think I can save a few bucks and stock pile on loo roll and marigolds. oops sorry too much info. anyhow, unless you have time to kill, don’t mind saving nothing because the discounted products you thought were half price end up being full price and by the time you’ve noticed it’s too late and you’re advised to come back at 10am the next morning to resolve the discrepancy at the customer service desk, well it can make anyone turn into the Hulk proper. Hate it.

Asda is the walmart’s UK version, and it shares many similar characteristics. It has kitchen stuff, clothes, electronics, etc.
The focus is definitely on the groceries though. I would say 80% of the store is devoted to groceries, and they’re pretty cheap. Especially Asda brand stuff, which can be ¹⁄₃ of the price of brand-​name stuff for the same quality.
I think their produce section is not very good, but that also might be a british thing (hard to get good groceries in the dead of winter in Northern Europe; is the UK northern Europe?) The meat section is also a little lacking.
There is simply less selection. You won’t find turkey bacon or anything out of the mainstream here. To be fair, one doesn’t come here for turkey bacon. You come here for cheap staples, and on that front Asda rocks.
Also, self-​checkout lanes speed up the queue movement, which can be pretty slow as this store is popular.

JULY 2009 UPDATE
I am downgrading my rating temporarily to 3 for a new pet hate of mine. Incompetent staff that can’t scan out security protected items properly. Its embarassing and inconvenient to be stopped by the security guard while carrying your body weight in groceries, just because you decided to take advantage of a dvd bargain.
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MAY 2009
I don’t know exactly why but I’ve always liked Asda more than the other supermarkets. I guess it’s because it’s the first one I regularly shopped at for myself. Not even the negative comments I have seen about Wall-​Mart have put me off.
Asda supermarkets are of course generally all huge, unlike tescos say, that come in S, M, L and XL. I suppose that’s why they always have such an excellent choice of products. I think I spent about an hour wandering around trying to decide what to get and I didn’t get bored, but perhaps a little weary.
And the clothes. I’ve never been disappointed by George clothes, which represent good value for money. The £3 jeans may not be the height of fashion, but they suit me just fine!

It is quite difficult for me to get to an ASDA from where I live, so this ASDA off the Old Kent Road is comparably easy for me to get to. I am a bit jealous of the people who can shop at ASDA every week, because ASDA do have really good prices and special offers for their food and drink. If you really were that way inclined, you could buy everything you wanted at this place, because they sell clothes and household goods etc all at a reasonable quality. I also find that it is a really pleasant shopping environment — not too crowded and cluttered.