asda.co.uk

Asda.com (home shopping)

Before using Asda home shopping I read all the reviews written about it to know what kind of service I should expect. I read some fairly good reviews and other terribly bad experiences, and I took the risk. I waited to have a bad experience with Asda before I review the service, but now after six deliveries, nothing seriously bad happened. Still, I will try to discuss all the negative aspects that some reviewers mentioned.

To register, you have to make sure that Asda delivers to your address, then you have to provide some basic information. I read in one of the reviews that navigating the site is difficult and so shopping takes time. For me, navigating is extremely easy, and I will explain this more, but the site is somewhat slow. This slowness can be tolerated, but I just wish the pages would appear more quickly. I said navigating is very easy because you can find a list of the aisles with a search facility on the left, a number of useful links in the middle, and the content of your trolley on the right. Everything is at your finger tips, and the more you shop, the easier it gets to find what you want more quickly. If you want to buy "chocolate peanuts" you can search for it, and so a number of products will appear in the middle. Some other irrelevant products will appear as well, but the search facility is still very useful. You can also find "chocolate peanuts" in the list of aisles through going to confectionery > chocolate > large bags. Once you find the product you are looking for, and here you have the choice to see the shelf with or without pictures of the products, you can simply add it to your trolley by pressing the yellow button (add). There are other choices as well, like adding more than one of the same product, and also choose to add a certain product to your favourites.

The first one of the aisles has to do with the occasion at the time of the shopping like Easter, Christmas, New Year, etc., and now it is St George's Day. The rest include: bakery & cakes + dairy, milk & eggs + fruit, vegetables & salad + meat, poultry & fish + ready meals, pies & pizza + baking, desserts & spreads + beers, wines & spirits + biscuits & snacks + confectionery + cereals + cooking ingredients + pasta, rice & noodles + soft drinks, tea & coffee + tins & packets + world foods, sauces & accompaniments + frozen food + baby + pharmacy & health + toiletries + cleaning + household & kitchen + laundry + pet care + electrical goods + newsagent & kiosk + home & leisure + recipes + George at home. This means that you can find almost everything you want without much effort. You can buy not only different kinds of food, but also laundry products, kitchen utensils, cigarettes, some kinds of medicine, and even some essential electrical goods.

Most of the problems have to do with the products that are delivered to you: missing items, replaced items, or even added items. In my first delivery, one item was missing, but it was not an essential item for only £0.80, so this did not bother me and I did not call to inform them. Another time, the bread I bought was replaced by a different kind, without having this clearly stated in the delivery note, so it was a mistake. Again this was not worth complaining about although I did not like the bread they replaced mine with. I read about all kinds of mistakes when it comes to delivery from Asda, but for me the mistakes were tolerable. If you find something wrong with the products delivered to you, you can call customer service: 0845 300 7771.

The value of the items in your trolley should be at least £25 so that you go to check out. A delivery slot can be booked even before you start shopping, and it will be reserved for you for three hours. Every delivery slot is two hours, but the time and delivery charge are not the same for all the week days. You can choose from the following delivery slots: (10am-12pm) (11am-1pm) (2pm-4pm) (3pm-5pm) (6pm-8pm) or (7pm-9pm) except for Sunday in which the delivery slots are: (11am-1pm) (12pm-2pm) (3pm-5pm) or (4pm-6pm). As for the delivery charge, it's £4.00 on Tuesday and Wednesday, £4.50 on Monday and Thursday, and £5.00 on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So, choose wisely and don't wait till the weekend when you no longer have any food in the house.

I read in some reviews that delivery was late at times, but this never happened to me. Still, once the delivery was an hour early; the driver just called and said he is a bit early, but this wasn't a problem for me. Once I took a survey on Asda about the kind of service I get from them, and the questions made e realize things that I never paid attention to before. The questions which I replied with "no" to are: do the drivers introduce themselves? Do they state what the substitutes are? Do they tell you that you can give them the unwanted plastic bags so that they recycle them? I think these questions are relevant, but I still think that the service is satisfactory even when the driver does not say much.

Everybody knows that the best thing about Asda is the huge number of offers they have. The special offers can be found if you choose one of the tabs in the middle of the screen. These include: rollback, multisave, and Asda price. The best one of the offers is usually the multisave which includes a huge number of products on offer. However, I have to warn you here that, although most of the offers are great, some of them are more expensive when bought separately. For instance, if we remain with the "chocolate peanuts" example, the single 200g bag can be bought for £0.48 and the offer is 3 for £2.00 (!!!)

I read certain reviews in which people complained because if you want a certain offer, it should be still valid on the day of delivery. The writer of the review said that she was surprised by the doubled price at the time of delivery. I don't know if things changed since then, but this mistake cannot happen if you shop now. To begin with, you can check the validity of each offer before you buy, and even if you miss that and go to checkout, a warning written in red will be found on top of the contents of your trolley to the effect that a certain offer won't be valid so be careful. However, the problem is, if you choose not to receive substitutes, you might lose a certain offer. For example, Super noodles to Go (each for £0.78) is on offer now: 4 for £2.00. If you choose 4 different kinds and one of them turns out to be unavailable at the time of delivery, you will pay more than £2.00 even though you get 3 noodle pots only. This, however, can be solved very easily by choosing to accept substitutes.

Home shopping experience

One of the reviews that attracted my attention was obviously written by someone who works for Asda. That review attacked another review that criticized the service, and the main point was that lazy people should be grateful that Asda workers do the shopping for them. Well, I am very grateful… thank you! I think more and more people will start buying groceries online, exactly as we buy books, perfumes, and numerous other things online. Moreover, it is true that you pay £4.00-£5.00 for the delivery, yet you save money. That is because, in addition to the various offers in Asda, online shopping prevents you from buying whatever you see in the supermarket even when it is not on your list. It also helps you control your spending if you have a certain budget that you don't want to exceed. So, it's not just for lazy people… it's for those who can't do the shopping themselves, those who don't have the time, and even those who want to save money. The negative points, in addition to being even more lazy, is all the possible mistakes I mentioned previously and also receiving your groceries in so many plastic bags. This is because frozen and chilled food, and different kind of products are put in separate bags. However, Asda solved this by allowing customers to give the plastic bags to the driver so that they get recycled.

To conclude, I will keep using this service and I promise to update my review if something bad happens.