THREE ways that you can SAVE even more MONEY on your SHOPPING .... (Asda)

Member Name: Night Owl

Product:	Asda
Date:	11/06/01 (1701 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Customer Service is excellent, cheap prices and now accept vouchers whether you buy the product or not. They also do alot for the local community.

Disadvantages: None

Asda are committed to permanently keeping prices low. They have already permanently cut prices of hundreds of everyday products, and plan to make even more ‘roll backs'. Their aim is to keep these prices permanently low, but now you can save even more money on your weekly shopping - how, I hear you ask - read on and all will be revealed......

Prior to Asda coming to our area last year, I too had seen all the adverts for Asda, promising to ‘rollback’ prices permanently. So when the store did finally come to our vicinity, I was determined to check out this promise and also the store in general, this has led to me to write this opinion.

Asda was formed in 1965 by a group of farmers from Yorkshire, and have eventually become part of the Wal-Mart group (a large American company) on 26 July 1999. The Wal-Mart name appeared in the UK for the first time in 2000, when the Asda-Wal-Mart supercentre was opened in Bristol, and a further two more supercentres also opened in 2000. Plans for the future - include opening another 10 by 2006. Over the past five years 60 new stores have been opened and another 54 have been refurbished. Only 11 of these stores are classed as ’out of town’ stores, as defined by the Government. They now have 240 stores and 19 depots all across the UK.

Asda has rapidly become one of Britain’s best value shopping supermarkets, and sell a mixture of fresh food, grocery, clothing, home, leisure and entertainment goods. They also try to offer the best value weekly shop with prices on average 10% lower than their main competitors. As well as many ‘rollback’ prices, there are also many special offers - three for the price of two, buy one get one free, or also buy either two or three of a product for a fixed amount, whatever the offer specifies.

George at Asda, (see related opinion) is Asda’s own exclusive fashion range, and was voted ‘Value for Money Retailer 20
00’ by Prima Magazine. This label was launched in 1990 when George Davies, a founder of the ‘Next’ high street chain joined Asda. Originally, George at Asda was only available from five of the stores, it has now grown and the George label can be found in 204 stores. The George label includes womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, footwear, schoolwear, lingerie, hosiery, swimwear and accessories. The first George Babyshop was launched in the Asda-Wal-Mart supercentre in 2000, following its success, by the end of 2000, the George Babyshop has appeared in another 19 stores.

The quality of food that Asda sell is very high, as you would expect. Their own brand foods - Asda Smartprice, are very cheap e.g. Asda Smartprice 410g tin of Baked Beans in tomato sauce currently 9p a tin, and is excellent value. Being, normally a person who would rather buy a brand name, as so to be assured of quality, I have to admit to be slightly wary of trying the own brand makes. Past experience has made me believe that you get what you pay for, taste is often compromised in order for the product to be so cheap, and I often believed that own value brands taste as such, a very cheap and tasteless alternative. With Asda Smartprice this is definitely not the case, as well as the prices being obviously alot cheaper, the products don’t taste cheap, and it is often difficult to tell the difference between a brand name and the cheaper own brand. We often buy Asda’s own label products, from baked beans to frozen meat pies. The family now preferring Asda own make pies to previously bought Birds Eye. Our cupboards are now bursting with Asda own brand products, so as well as saving money overall on products with the ‘rollback‘, this is another for the shopper to save money. Read on to see another way to save money.

The level of Customer Service offered at Asda is unbeatable, I just can’t fault it. It makes shopping such a personal experien
ce, these days shop assistants can’t be bothered to help you - even though it is supposed to be their job and as for a simple and courteous smile and general good manners, this is often seriously lacking. Nothing is too much trouble for Asda - at our local store we are often greeted with a smile and a friendly courtesy word, at the entrance of the store they even have a Personal Greeter. Every time that we go shopping, which is roughly the same time and day each week, with a few exceptions, we see the same personal greeter. She is such a lovely person, and just the sort of person the children would like to adopt as a ‘Grandma’. She recognises us from each week, as she must do with all the shoppers that go there regularly. She has watched my children grow up - my daughter was a tiny baby when we first started shopping there, now she is trying to walk everywhere on her own. The greeter even commented on this to us the last time that we went shopping. They say that it is only the little things that
matter, which in this case is true, it may only be a little thing, but it definitely makes all the difference, as shopping has unquestionably become a more personal and enjoyable experience.
The checkout operators are also the same, always a smile on their faces, as if they do actually enjoy what they are doing and they also make the effort to speak to you, which makes a change.

Customer Service just can’t be faulted, if a mistake has been made on your receipt, e.g. not charged at the price displayed or the offer displayed hasn’t come up on the receipt, then if you take your receipt to customer services they will soon rectify the situation and as well as giving you the difference of the overpayment on your receipt, they will also give you £2.00 in Asda vouchers - as a good will gesture to compensate for the mistake.

We regularly buy Asda’s ready meals, as they are very handy just to have in the freezer, and then
can be popped into the microwave when needed. These are usually 98p each or you can buy 5 for £4.00, we usually buy the Hot Chicken Curry, as well as various other ones. On this particular occasion it was the Hot Chicken Curry, which my son was eating, in it he found a piece of plastic, which I was quite disgusted at. If my son was younger he could have quite easily eaten this with dire consequences. I immediately phoned our local Asda, and the Manager told me to take it in. I did this and immediately received a refund of the cost of the product, plus a £5.00 voucher, while they sent the offending article and packaging away to be examined. Not expecting to hear anything for a week or so, I waited. What I didn’t expect was to receive a letter two days later with another £5.00 voucher apologizing profusely and that it was being looked into immediately. Now that is what I call customer service - all to often these large companies can’t be bothered to look after the ‘little’ people that have helped them become the large and successful company.

As well as excellent customer service, Asda like to emphasize that they are also ‘stores of the community’, trying to play a positive part in all aspects of local life. Asda like to demonstrate good relationships with local MPs, councillors, emergency services, schools and charities. Since the local store has been open it is always in our local paper, for something that it has done for the local community. Only last week my son came home from school, to say that they had been given some free food - apples, raisins or dried pineapple slices to encourage healthy eating for children, these had been donated by our local Asda.

At the moment, there are various community involvement programmes in progress that have the complete backing of Asda, these include: -

Anti Bullying - Asda has teamed up with the leading Children’s charity NCH, to raise awareness of some of th
e issues surrounding bullying. The campaign will also raise funds for NCH, this will help NCH to run their successful anti-bullying workshops in more than 200 local secondary schools, enabling teachers to signs of bullying and learn how to deal with it effectively.

The Big Read - this is in support of the UK Government’s National Year of Literacy, local schools were invited to their local Asda store to spend time listening to professional story tellers. This was a unique partnership between all Asda stores and libraries nationwide.

The Big Sum - the Big Sum gave children the opportunity to develop their maths skills in real life situations. Stores invited school classes in to complete activity trails designed by education experts.

Breast Cancer Care - Tickled Pink. Asda has continued to work with Breast Cancer Care to help raise funds and awareness for the charity. So far over £1 million pounds have been raised.

Asda have also even set up their own charity - The Asda Foundation. This was set up to support good causes, whether it is through fund-raising or by getting actively involved.

As well as all these excellent campaigns that Asda have ongoing, they are also able to offer us competitive rates for: -
Asda Pet Insurance
Asda Travel Insurance
Asda Calltime - enabling us to make cheaper calls to anywhere in the world.

Is there any end to everything that Asda is able to offer us? It would seem not - they are also able to offer a shopping service on line. From this site you are able to find out if they can deliver to you via inputting your postcode, you can organise your insurance or just generally find out about the various campaigns they currently support, or further information about Asda.

Their website address is: - www.asda.co.uk

So for the third and final way that you can save money on your shopping. If you save all the money off coupons that are in magazines, newspapers o
r that you receive through the post, then you are able to have this total amount deducted from your shopping bill, whether you buy the product or not. I only know this information because I have to admit to reading it in another member’s opinion. As I wasn’t totally convinced that this could be done (no disrespects to the member that wrote the original op) I decided to check this out for myself, whether it could be done, as knowing my luck, I would be standing at the check out with a fist full of coupons only to be told this information was incorrect. I am pleased report that the information is indeed correct, and this has only recently started. You are able to present the coupons at the check out whether or not you buy the product, as long as Asda sell the product. The only coupons that they do not accept are Asda’s own coupons and then you will have to purchase the product as stated on the coupon. So I would just like to say an enormous thank you to the member that first brought this information to my attention (you know who you are). Normally I seem to accumulate so many vouchers, and before I have chance to use them, they end up going out of date, so this piece of information will hopefully save me a fortune on my weekly shopping bill.

So with reference to the title to my opinion - to recap, the three ways that you can save money on your weekly shopping are: -

1. Shop at Asda, as the permanently roll backed prices are guaranteed to save you money.

2. Buy Asda own brand labels - these are often as good, if not better than the brand bought products, they are also alot cheaper.

3. Asda now accept coupons whether or not you have purchased the product. As long as it is not an Asda own coupon, as then you will have to buy the product as mentioned in the coupon. So as long as Asda stock the product, they will now accept the voucher without the customer having to buy the product.

I would just like to m
ake it clear that some of the facts and information that have been used in this opinion have been taken from Asda’s website - www.asda.co.uk

Summary: