Saturday Morning Saga (Asda)

Member Name: DaisyDuck

Product:	Asda
Date:	07/09/01 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good range, Inexpensive

Disadvantages: Some less helpful staff.

I have shopped at Asda for over 10 years, and in several different Asda Stores, so Daisy and family would like to take you on a shopping tour, to show you why we like to shop at Asda.

The Asda Car Park.
I'ts quite early and we manage to secure a parent and child space. This is a relief as Daddy Duck fumes when these spaces have been taken by people with "no child seats in their cars". Special parking bays are also available for the disabled.

Trolley Store.
"Is this a full shop or an intermediate?". Daddy Duck asks. Why? Well on full shop days we need a "big shopper " trolley and a standard one. On "intermediate" days we need one of the smaller "quick shop" varieties. I tell him this is going to be a full shop so he puts the £1 coins into the deposit slots to get our two chosen trolleys. There are a large selection of trolleys to choose from, with baby seats, toddler seats, and ones that fix to wheelchairs, none of them come with a guarantee of non-wobbly wheels or good steering properties though.

Inside the Store.

First thing April sees is the toilet, so she wants to use it, regardless of whether she actually need to.

Next we enter the clothing section, no sorry, Matthew and his Dad have made a sharp left into the videos , games, Cds and DVDs. I go back and point out that we don't need any games at the moment, and drag Daddy Duck back to the matter in hand, "but where's Matthew?". Playing with the mobile phone display, encourage him to move by pointing out we will soon be reaching the doughnut samples.

Finally we are all in the clothing and footwear department, surrounded by fashionable "George" clothing for all the family, April wants to look at the Barbie range, but no it's new undies for young Matthew, we find them £5 for a pack of 4 boxer shorts, can't be bad. "No Matthew you don't need to go into the
changing rooms to try them on!"

Excitement heightens as we approach the Instore Bakery, noses twitching to catch the smell of freshly baked bread. Matthew makes a grab for the ever popular doughnut samples, his little sister tries to push him out the way, he stamps on her foot, there is a bloodcurdling scream, then silence as every stops to look at my children fighting over a few scraps of doughnut. I take a deep breath and calmly ask them to stop it, after all they have had their breakfast, I feel the blood rising in my face, I think that everyone watching assumes I feed my kids on free samples, after all the only thing in my trolley is a packet of underpants.

We move on to the pre-packed bread and cakes, and buy a couple of Asda sliced loaves at 35p each. On the right are the jams, marmalades etc, I pick up some honey.

Now were into fruit and veg a great selection. Daddy goes to buy all the regular oranges, apples and bananas while I see what fruit is on special, peaches, plums, melons and some grapes specially requested by April.

Fresh meat now, some Smartprice turkey steaks, a chicken and some lean beef mince. Things are fairly quiet now, April is steering the smaller trolley into other shoppers ankles while Matthew busies himself removing labels from the shelf edges.

We carry on filling are trolleys with food and drink , until we get to books and magazines which is opposite the TV, Video and Audio equipment. Here we are paused for some time whilst April makes the difficult choice of whether to have a Tweenies, Barbie or Magic Key magazine, and her dad looks at electrical stuff TV, Video and Audio equipment we neither need nor want.

Next its my turn to look at the electrical goods, but this time its sensible things like a microwave for under £50, kettles, toaters, food mixers and the like.

More food mainly frozen now being flung into the trolley. Next stop canned food.
After buying a select
ion of tempting tins for our two cats, we get to my bargain area of Asda.
The Asda Smartprice range covers most goods in the store, but I find budget pies, sausage rolls, coffee etc . quite unappetising but the tinned veg are a real bargain. Chopped tomatoes 15p, plum tomatoes 9p and sweetcorn 22p. I also buy dried spaghetti and long grain rice in this range as it doesn't appear to look or taste differently from the more expensive versions.

Nearing the end now grabbing dairy products as we approach the fresh pizza counter. Daddy Duck orders his favourite cajun chicken, sweetcorn, roasted onions and red chillies. The pizza assistant seems to have a soft spot for him as she piles on the toppings and asks if he would like chilli oil as well.

We have a quick check of the shopping list, I run round and get the half a dozen things we always forget and we make our way to the checkouts.

We casually stroll along the checkouts to choose our operator. Not the one who takes forever and chats to her mate whilst checking our order, not the one who throws stuff down the shoot at 50 miles per hour, no we want the operator who concentrates on the job in hand, and keeps a reasonable pace to give you time to pack.

Stop of at the kiosk on the way out to buy a paper, if we smoked the cigarettes are at a good price, but we don't so we didn't.
I grab the Asda free monthly magazine. The September issue has 114 glossy pages, features on hair, fashion, recipes, an interview with Five, and of course the odd money off coupon.

Back to the car , kids get in, I load the car whilst hubby uses the cash machine. April wants to eat some of her grapes on the way home, so I ferret through 25 carrier bags to find them.

Get some petrol on the way out, and our trip to Asda is done, until next week, which thankfully will be a small or as hubby calls it "intermediate" shop.

So why do I like Asda.
Good range,
can be as cheap or expensive as you choose, good helpful staff on the whole, good facilities for families and the disabled.

Customer Service and returns.
I have never had any trouble when returning items, these have been few and far between, but they have always exchanged the goods or given me a refund. I even took back some bananas that had failed to ripen over a couple of weeks, and was amazed when these were replaced with a bigger bunch without question. Most of all they never show that they mind when my kids are fighting or sabotaging their displays.

It Asda be worth it!

Summary: