Home Shopping on a Shoestring!!! (asda.co.uk)

Member Name: skittle

Product:	asda.co.uk
Date:	23/04/01 (3489 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy, and very, very lazy!!!

Disadvantages: Not quite as much choice

As I sit here and type this opinion I am also listening with one ear for a knock at the door. You see, I made my first order with “Asda @t Home” on Saturday night, booked my delivery slot for between 11:00 and 13:00 and I’m now waiting for it to arrive. It’s approximately 11:28, so they’ve got plenty of time yet, I’ll let you know when it gets here!

I have to say, I’m hoping they won’t get here within the next few minutes because I want to tell you all about the ordering process and as much about the website as I possibly can before I get interrupted with the usual rush to dig out the frozen food and get it put away first so it doesn’t defrost (yes, I’m a home shopping junky, I know all the tricks!) Before checking to make sure that everything on the receipt has actually been delivered and that I actually ordered everything that was on the receipt. Phew, it’s an exhausting business, ordering on line. Who said it was supposed to be labour-saving? Still, at least it means I can sit in my scruffy clothes typing an opinion at home instead of traipsing round the supermarket for a couple of hours only to realise when I get home that I’ve forgotten the one thing I really needed in the first place. Unfortunately, ordering online with Asda hasn’t actually saved me any time so far, but to give Asda their due it is the first time I’ve ever ordered and I’m sure it will get quicker if I ever use the service again.

I seem to be jumping ahead a little here, so I’m now going to shoot back to the beginning and tell you the full story of shopping online with Asda from my point of view. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin… Once upon a time in a land far, far away (OK, so that’s not strictly true) there lived a beautiful Princess (yes, I am talking about me, I know it’s a bit of a stretch of the imagination, but just stick with m
e on this one, OK) who loathed the whole rigmarole of Supermarket shopping. She’d dabbled in home shopping before and ordered several times from Iceland (free delivery, don’t you know, but terribly limited selection) but refused point blank to order from Tesco because they charge a £5 delivery fee which she believes is an absolute travesty! Then, one day whilst out gathering nuts and berries (from the shelves of Asda) she came across a little sign stuck on the end of a shelf saying “we can deliver to your home”. Can you now? The Princess mused, before asking the checkout maiden how this could be arranged. Alas, the checkout maiden had narry a clue but suggested that the Princess check out a new fangled invention known only as “the internet”. All excited the Princess rushed home to check out this wondrous invention, before being distracted by a packet of Wotsit’s Wafflers and a chocolate Hobnob and forgetting all about it. But wait, our story does not end there… Several weeks later our fair Princess had dire need of sustenance one balmy evening. Upon entering Asda through the servants entrance (the back door) she noticed a small stand of free customer magazines hidden away in a corner. “Prithee, what could this be? Free! I’m having one of those” (said the Princess, always a sucker for a freebie, as George Michael was once (allegedly - Thanks Gromit!) reputed to have said!) Upon returning to her castle (I wish!) and perusing said journal she learned that Asda do indeed offer an online service for home delivery and the whole kingdom rejoiced (well, OK, I was moderately pleased and my dogs just looked puzzled).

OK, I can’t keep that up, lets zip forward several years to Modern day England and rejoin our heroine (looking nothing like a Princess, more like a serf, as she waits at home for the Asda delivery man to arrive). I was pretty pleased to discover that Asda do home deli
very as I’m a lazy soul at heart and would much rather sit in a chair and wait for shopping to be delivered to me than go out and actually buy it, oh no, that’s far too much like hard work for me. Aha! (No, not the dodgy 80’s Norwegian pop group) Was that a knock at the door???

Yes, it appears it was. It’s approximately 11:39 and my shopping has just arrived, delivered by a very nice, happy young blokey who was incredibly pleasant and polite inspite of having to carry dozens of shopping bags down my perilous potholed drive to my front door (I’m not THAT greedy, I order in bulk, that’s my excuse anyway). Top marks for your delivery staff, Asda! Young blokey brought all of my shopping into the house for me and kept smiling all the way through (bless!) Just give me half an hour to put it all away and I’ll be right back… OK, I’ve unpacked my order (that was quick, I hear you cry) and found a couple of problems, but I’ll let you know about those later, I’m getting ahead of myself again, I haven’t even told you about ordering yet, deary me…

The free catalogue I’d picked up at Asda informed me that I can order from home in several ways, by phone, fax, Asda’s CD Rom or online. Payment is accepted by Visa, Delta, Switch or Mastercard and the delivery charge is £3.50 per order or free for orders of £99 or more. Asda deliver seven (SEVEN!) days per week, which surprised me, and they’ll even deliver as early as 07:00 and as late as 22:00 on some days. Online was the option that appealed to me most, so I typed in the web address (www.asda.com) and off I went. Registration was easy-peasy so I won’t bore you with the details. I did have to input my postcode to discover if Asda deliver in my area, but I was sure this wouldn’t be a problem as my local Asda is only a ten minute walk away. Strangely, the delivery note says that my order came from
Watford, which is very odd as Watford must be about ten to fifteen miles from my house! After registering I was asked to book a delivery slot, which I booked for a day and a half later. I ordered my shopping to be delivered on a Monday, and there were loads of vacant delivery times to choose from (they’re available in two hour slots, for example my shopping was due to arrive at some point between 11:00 and 13:00). However, the catalogue does warn that Friday and Saturday are very busy days so early booking is advised.

Asda have made their whole ordering process as simple as possible so I can’t see people having too many problems with ordering, however, some of the items listed in the catalogue are a little misleading, as they have the wrong pictures next to them, for example, the Pedigree Chum Rasks show pictures of the wrong sizes against the wrong descriptions. I’d also definitely recommend using the catalogue in conjunction with the internet site as there are no product pictures online and the catalogue is fully illustrated, which makes for a much nicer shopping experience. The catalogue and website are both laid out in an almost identical fashion with aisle headings such as Ready Meals or Frozen Foods, followed by subheadings such as Sausages or Prepared Poultry so it’s very easy to track down exactly what you’re looking for. However, I did get a little confused sometimes and couldn’t find the item I was looking for where I expected it to be online. For these occasions Asda have provided a search facility so that you can input the handy six digit code provided in the catalogue to find a particular item online. This worked perfectly for me apart from once when the search didn’t find an item. It appears the item number in the catalogue was incorrect. Hm, I think I’ll probably give Asda eight out of ten for the quality of information supplied on the website and catalogue.

The range of pr
oduce available for delivery is very impressive, there are some items missing that I would normally buy from my local store, but not many! More importantly, Asda offer multi-buys for online ordering, just as they do in the Supermarket, which is a sure-fire winner with me as I’m always in search of bargains! Ordering online is incredibly easy, just select the item and the quantity, then add or delete items if you change your mind or order in error, however, one major bug-bear for me is the speed (or should that be lack-of speed) of the website. It really is very slow. I placed my order reasonably late on a Saturday night (sad, I know) and the site was really quite frustrating as I had to select an item, wait for my shopping list to refresh, select another item and wait for the shopping list to refresh again, etc. Woe betide you if you try to order two items in quick succession, you might think you’ve ordered them both but when the shopping list refreshes you’ll find that one of them is missing. I found the delay tiresome and almost gave up ordering online out of sheer frustration, but persevered, and three hours later I managed to complete my order. Now, please don’t let the amount of time it took me to complete my order put you off. You see, although I profess to hate shopping I don’t really, I just hate other shoppers (they get in my way!) Plonk me down in my local 24 hour Tesco in the middle of the night with just me, the staff and a couple of students with the munchies and I’m as happy as Larry, different story in a busy supermarket on a Saturday afternoon, think Evil Incarnate with a shopping trolley! So for me, poring over the Asda catalogue for three hours was unadulterated luxury, an exercise in pure bliss, and that’s inspite of the frustrating dawdle of the website! (It also gave me a legitimate excuse to keep the hubby off the computer for the evening, ie “you want to eat next week, don’t you
?”) So you see, I probably spent much longer than your average internet shopper just trying to decide whether to go for Heinz Ketchup or Asda’s own brand, in a squeezy bottle or glass, 1kg or 750g, etc. I expect it will be much quicker to order in future too, as all of the items I ordered this time have been saved on my profile for me to make it much quicker and easier for me to order them next time. Even so, although Asda get top marks for ease of ordering, only 50% for speed of ordering I’m afraid, and I’ve got a feeling I’m being rather over generous with that rating.

Anyway, I eventually got to the end of the ordering process (with a by now quite angry husband leaning over my left shoulder insisting that I don’t need seven different kinds of dog biscuit and could I get off the computer now, please) and proceeded to the “checkout” it was only after I’d entered my credit card details and confirmed my order that my husband noticed that there was no padlock on the bottom right of the screen (you know, the symbol that signifies a secure transaction!) I distantly remembered that some two hours and fifty five minutes previously I’d had one of those messages saying that the page I was about to look at had secure and unsecure information, and did I want to see it, but hadn’t thought about it since. I’d naturally assumed that Asda would have a secure link for credit cards. Oh dear. I tried to call the help line, but it was almost midnight at this point and the office was closed. Cue one very sleepless night (despite reassurances from my husband that somebody untoward actually getting hold of my credit card details was very unlikely). I called the office the following day (Sunday) and spoke to a man who was very pleasant, but completely clueless regarding computers. He did, however, offer to get somebody to call me back first thing in the morning. First thing Monday morning arrived
and I didn’t see one second of it! I eventually dragged myself out of bed at around 11:00 and found a message on the answermachine from Michael at Asda, who assured me that even though the padlock hadn’t shown the transaction had been secure. I didn’t believe him (I’m not a trusting soul) so called him back and demanded he tell me how he knows that my transaction was secure. He was extremely sweet and patiently explained several times that although 99% of the time the padlock symbol appears, occasionally there is a glitch in the system that means it doesn’t but that my credit card information is encoded with a code that is “impossible” to crack and that even in the very, very slight chance that some criminal did get hold of my credit card details I would be covered by Asda’s guarantee and wouldn’t lose a penny (he even said that I could keep his voice on tape on my answer machine as a further guarantee!) So, top marks for Asda for Technical Customer Support Bods!

The order itself was near perfect. A loaf of bread I’d ordered was not in stock so this had been replaced with a similar brand completely free of charge!!! Another item wasn’t in stock and I guess that they didn’t have any alternatives, as this was just deleted from the order. Also, one item that I’d ordered was included on the receipt but I didn’t receive it (see, ALWAYS check to make sure it’s all there!) And some bright spark had packed my fresh diced onions (told you I was lazy, chopping onions is just too much like hard work for me) in the same carrier bag as the strawberries and raspberries. Needless to say the bag burst on the onions which gave the soft fruit a rather distinctive “oniony tang”. I got straight on the phone to Asda, and the customer support geezer (again, incredibly polite and pleasant) didn’t quibble at all, he just promised to refund me for all of the items i
mmediately!!! So again, top marks for customer services, Asda, I’m very, very impressed.

All in all, I’d definitely recommend the Asda online shopping experience. Yes, the website is frustratingly slow, but the price, quality and range of products is very impressive. I had been concerned about the quality of the fresh produce before ordering, obviously when I go to the supermarket I pick the best of the fruit and veg and leave the bruised/over-ripe items behind. I needn’t have worried, it was all of very good quality without a bruise or a blemish in sight. Most importantly, every single member of staff I’ve had contact with has been exceptionally professional and the piffling mistakes with my order were sorted in seconds. I’m a convert, and I hope that you’ll give it a try too. It certainly blows the Iceland online service right out of the water (sorry, Iceland) There’s just one thing that really niggles me. Why do they call their service Asda “@t” Home? Surely it should be Asda @ Home, shouldn’t it???

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