Grocery Shopping
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I don't mind going grocery shopping and it doesn't bother me having to go out and do it, how-ever due to work commitments and not being able to get to my local supermarket all the time I decided to start shopping for some of these items online and having them delivered. My local supermarket is Sainsbury's, how-ever quite often I will go to my local store to find shelves empty or products that go out of date the following day, this is especially the case with their loaves or bread. I find Asda really cheap for shopping and I also find that they have really good offers and deals on so I decided to start doing online shopping with them, where I could pay to have the items delivered to my home. This was much easier for me and would save me time and also money because Asda are a lot cheaper that other supermarkets such as Sainsbury's.

The Website
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When you first go to the Asda website you will notice the green colour of the website which is the colour that represents Asda. There are a number of options along the top of the page depending on what you are shopping for. This includes Groceries, Asda Direct, Asada Money, Entertainment, George Clothing, Baby, Gifts, Photo's, Flowers, Travel & Holidays, and Health & Beauty. You will see some pictures of offers that are currently on such as certain foods for the festive season. Simply click on Groceries to start your shopping. On this page you can type in your postcode to check that Asda deliver to you and you also log in if you already have an account or you can create an account at a later stage once you have completed your shopping. Along the top of the screen are different categories so you can start shopping and adding the items you need to your basket. These categories include Fresh Fruit & Veg, Fresh Meat & Fish, Dairy, Eggs and Chilled, Bakery, Food Cupboard, Drinks, Frozen, Health & Beauty, Baby & Toddler, Household & Laundry, Pets, Home & Entertainment. I sometimes write a list of the items I need and refer to this when shopping or I will browse some of the section to looks to see what items they have to offer. I don't tend to buy fresh fruit and veg as I like to see these items and pick them for myself. When you click on one of the categories this will come up with a page of items that are on offer in that category. For example if I click on Dairy this may give me offers for cheese or other items.

Once you have clicked on the category there will more options for you to choose from such as Cheese, Milk, Butter/Spreads, Cream, Eggs, etc. Simply click on what you are looking for, for example Cheese and a range of cheese products will be displayed. You then narrow down the selection to see by choosing a specific brand such as Cathedral City. Once you have seen the item you like simply click Add under the product and this will be added to your basket. You can read more information about the product simply by clicking on that item. Once you have added your first item you will need to create an account which takes just a few minutes. Your basket is displayed in a section on the right hand side of the screen where you can see the items you have already selected and the total of the items in your basket. You can add more of the items remove them or change the quantities when you are ready to pay for your items. I could spend a good hour browsing the different items on here if I'm not looking for anything specific. As you can search for items by using the brand this takes less time if you are looking for specific products. Once you have finished shopping simply press the Checkout button which can be found at the top of your basket you will then be taken onto the next screen. Please note that minimum order for delivery is £25.00.

Checkout
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The first process of the Checkout stage is to book your slot for delivery. You can choose 2hr or 8hr slots. I normally go for the 2hr slots due to work. A table of information will appear with dates and times that you can pick to have your shopping delivered. The prices do vary depending on what time of day you want your item delivered but the cheapest price is £3.00 and the most expensive is £5.00. If there is a picture of a van it means there is a van in your area during this time. Once you have clicked on the slot in the table you would like it will check that this slot is available and will then say 'Available' in green lettering. Click Book Slot and this will finalise the time slot you have chosen. You can now go on to check the items in your basket and pay for your items. The items which were placed in your basket will appear in a long list, here you can change the quantities or remove the items. You can also choose whether you want to have any substitute items or not. I normally un-tick substitutes for my items so if they don't have the item in stock I will be refunded. If you choose to have substituted items they may send you a slightly different item. For example if they haven't got Kingsmill medium sliced white bread they may send you Hovis medium slice white bread. Once you have checked the items in your basket you can pay for your items and you will get sent a confirmation to your e-mail address confirming your order and time slot. You can change any items in your basket up to 1pm the day before your delivery is due. If you have any problems with your order that you can't work out how to amend online then you can call Customer Services with any queries. The money for your shopping won't come out of your account until your shopping has been packed the day before the items are due to be sent to you. If there are any problems with your card or payment information they will either call you or send you a text message stating that you need to contact them regarding your recent order.

Delivering the Items
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I can't fault Asda for not being on time as whenever I have ordered from here they have never been late and have always arrived on time. I always find the drivers very helpful and polite and they can answer any queries that you may have. The driver will unload your items from the van and will hand you an invoice and inform you if any items were out of stock if you have any substitute items. If you are not happy with the substitute items you can tell the driver where he will take them back and will scan them in order for you to get a refund. The driver doesn't stay whilst you unpack and check the items on your list so if you have any other problems with your shopping such as missing items you will need to ring the customer service number which can be found on the invoice. When I receive a delivery I always go through the shopping bags and check the items off against the invoice so I can be sure of what items I have received. The first few times I ordered from Asda I didn't come across any problems and most of my items were sent and not very many items were out of stock. It seems as though the more often I order from Asda the worse the deliveries are. The 3rd delivery I received from Asda a few of the items sent to me didn't match the items that I had ordered. I had ensured that I had ticked no substitutes when placing my order and as I unpacked my order and checked it off against the invoice I noticed that there were items I hadn't ordered but there were also items missing. I had ordered some fresh casserole beef and I received frozen vegetable casserole mix instead, how this mistake was made I had no idea. I also received chicken pies instead of the beef pies I had ordered. I had also ordered some chocolate and banana puddings and I was surprised to see that the use by date was the day that they delivered them. I rang customer services about this and they refunded me for the wrong items that had been sent to me. I received the refund back into my account within 2-3 days. Despite this slightly bad experience it didn't put me off ordering from them again so the following month I placed another order.

As always the van arrived on time and I was left to check off the items against the invoice once the driver had gone. Everything was going fine, until I peered into one of the bags which had some baby shampoo in and it had leaked inside the bag covering every item in there with baby shampoo. I totally understand that items can be damaged or maybe even broken during transit; how-ever what puzzled me after sorting the mess in the bag out was that I couldn't find the lid to the shampoo in the bag. The sweets & other things which were in the same bag were covered and I had to throw some of these items away due to them being in cardboard packaging. I rang up customer services the following day and they refunded me for the shampoo and for the items which I could no longer use. I again received the refund within 2-3 days. This still didn't put me off ordered from Asda again as I put this down to the bottle being damaged during transit even though the shampoo lid was no-where to be found in amongst my shopping!

The next 2 times I have ordered from Asda have not been good experiences. I actually placed and order for my granddad as he is unable to get out of the house. He didn't have a big order but had essential items on there such as Milk. I was very surprised when I was handed the invoice to see that they were out of stock of Semi-Skimmed Milk. . A large supermarket out of stock of the most popular item? This was very hard to believe. Maybe it was the case that he had ordered 4 pints and they didn't have a 4 pint bottle but had 2 pint bottles and someone hadn't used their initiative and though I know we can send 2 x 2 pint bottles. As this item was apparently out of stock we were refunded for this straight away, it also meant I had to pop to my local supermarket to get some milk that apparently Asda were out of stock of which I found very hard to believe. My most recent order with Asda has been a disaster. I placed the order approximately 2 weeks ago and a lot of the items on this list were items for Christmas. The delivery arrived on time, how-ever after checking off the items against the invoice there were a large number of items missing. In total I was missing over 20 items and there was no way that I had missed marking these items off. I was really shocked by this as the items weren't even out of stock and they had apparently been packed ready to be sent to me along with my other items. I rang up customer services the following day and I got told that the store manager would get back to me. The following day I received no phone call so I decided to ring them again. I gave the person on the other end of the phone my details and he made note of what items were missing and told me that I would receive a call the same day. Once again the whole day passed without a call from the store manager. All I wanted to know was if Asda were going to re-deliver the missing items or if they were going to refund me so I could purchase the items elsewhere. I called them yet again and demanded a refund for the missing items as I had now purchased them from my local Sainsbury's store. I have been appalled with the customer service team and over 1 week later is still awaiting a refund for the items that were not sent to me.

Overall Opinion
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I think the website is easy to use and I can find specific items that I am looking for quite easily. In terms of the ease of using the website and it being customer friendly and easy to navigate around I can't fault it as I always find everything I am looking for and have never experiences any problems such as technical problems when using the website. The delivery drivers always arrive on time and all the times I have ordered from Asda they have never been late. The first few times I ordered from Asda I have been very pleased with their service, how-ever the last 3 times especially my most recent order from them has been appalling and I have been very annoyed with the mix up of items. Customer Service are meant to be able to help you with any queries you have with your order, how-ever for my most recent order they seem to be absolutely useless at getting back to me and giving me my money back for the items they didn't send to me. I am very disappointed and annoyed at my recent experiences here and it seems as though the more I use them the worse the service gets. There was a few times where a few small problems didn't bother me but now every time I order from Asda there always seems to be a problem and they seem to get worse with trying to sort it out which is really frustrating. This has put me off shopping with Asda despite the brilliant offers on food they have there. After the experiences I have had I am more than willing to pay a bit extra for food that I know will get delivered to me and if I did have any problems with any other company I expect their customer service is much better than Asda's!



(review may also appear on ciao)