Let's talk ASDA

[PhædrusR]

I’m a Ham and Pineapple Pizza girl

Yeah, chicken and pineapple is my other favourite.
Again, add black olives, sweetcorn and mushrooms for the ultimate tasty treat.

 

[Vienna]

I don`t visit Asda weekly, usually just once every 3 or 4 weeks and I never do an online shop with them but when I do go to my local store I always check my receipt. The last time I went to the store the till charged me £6 for a bottle of washing up liquid (totally wrong price) and the time before that the till charged me £9.98 for a bottle of laundry liquid, yet again totally wrong price it should have been £4.98. No idea how that happens and that`s just 2 examples of overcharging. I could speak of more incidents of it happening and I shudder to think how many people never check their receipts. I`ve had wrongly priced bacon, toothpaste, knickers, etc
I`ve no idea what`s happening to their deliveries either. At one time their shelves were fairly well stocked 24/7 but in recent months there have been huge gaps of empty shelves and fridges and freezers. Some items missing for weeks. Their prices aren`t always the best by a long chalk, in fact some of their items are more expensive by pounds not pennies. My local Heron store sells Yorkshire tea bags a pound cheaper for exactly the same size box Asda sells, their milk is cheaper too and so is their coffee. My local Home Bargains sells big brand cleaning products, biscuits, tinned items much cheaper than the exact same items in Asda and then there is Aldi literally around the corner from Asda where you can buy all sorts of things under a different brand name but more or less identical to anything Asda might sell.
I appreciate not everybody has the time nor the inclination to shop around and I hate food/household items shopping but I do one shop per week in one store ie Asda, then the week after Aldi, then Heron, then Home Bargains and buy fresh stuff from my local market as and when.
An example of why more expensive doesn`t always mean better is my cat. She`s 20 and went right off her food. I bought some really expensive tiny tins of cat food from Asda in a posh brand name which tried to make out their cat food was almost made by hand but nope, my cat wouldn`t touch it. I bought tiny tins of a cat mousse from Aldi at 49p a tin and she bloody loves the stuff. She must know something we don`t !

 

[PhædrusR]

I don`t visit Asda weekly, usually just once every 3 or 4 weeks and I never do an online shop with them but when I do go to my local store I always check my receipt. The last time I went to the store the till charged me £6 for a bottle of washing up liquid (totally wrong price) and the time before that the till charged me £9.98 for a bottle of laundry liquid, yet again totally wrong price it should have been £4.98. No idea how that happens and that`s just 2 examples of overcharging. I could speak of more incidents of it happening and I shudder to think how many people never check their receipts. I`ve had wrongly priced bacon, toothpaste, knickers, etc
I`ve no idea what`s happening to their deliveries either. At one time their shelves were fairly well stocked 24/7 but in recent months there have been huge gaps of empty shelves and fridges and freezers. Some items missing for weeks. Their prices aren`t always the best by a long chalk, in fact some of their items are more expensive by pounds not pennies. My local Heron store sells Yorkshire tea bags a pound cheaper for exactly the same size box Asda sells, their milk is cheaper too and so is their coffee. My local Home Bargains sells big brand cleaning products, biscuits, tinned items much cheaper than the exact same items in Asda and then there is Aldi literally around the corner from Asda where you can buy all sorts of things under a different brand name but more or less identical to anything Asda might sell.
I appreciate not everybody has the time nor the inclination to shop around and I hate food/household items shopping but I do one shop per week in one store ie Asda, then the week after Aldi, then Heron, then Home Bargains and buy fresh stuff from my local market as and when.
An example of why more expensive doesn`t always mean better is my cat. She`s 20 and went right off her food. I bought some really expensive tiny tins of cat food from Asda in a posh brand name which tried to make out their cat food was almost made by hand but nope, my cat wouldn`t touch it. I bought tiny tins of a cat mousse from Aldi at 49p a tin and she bloody loves the stuff. She must know something we don`t !

Buying online you can see the item prices before adding to the basket; I think it cuts out some of the mispricing errors and I do check the final order inventory too.

Many, many years ago, we noticed the price total on the receipt was wrong, this was either Gateway, Somerfield or the small Asda it later became.

We checked the receipt, twice and raised it with the staff. They clustered round the till, did some tests. This particular till was erroring and adding up wrong. Next time we visited, that till only was cordoned off and out of service.

Very unusual to have a hardware, or firmware/chip error in a till that can't add up accurately, but was still basically working!

Good job we checked the receipt.

 

[PhædrusR]

@Vienna Good post & points. Asda is reasonably good value, and was lowest of the regular supermarkets until Tesco stole the Grocer33 award with its Clubcard discounts, after 20+ years of Asda winning it, but agreed you have to check their exceptions on some items and not get caught out.

With the Aldi price matches that Tesco/Sainsbury's and Asda sort of does, many of the staples or basic/essentials lines are the same price (and often sourced from same factory /firms/producers) in all of them.

But you're right that you have to carefully watch on other items that they're not cheaper elsewhere. Often it is others have a discount promo price to get you to move.

Also, like you say, to get lowest home, food, homeware, other, you'd have to shop at each best place for each sector. I don't mind paying a little extra if I can get everything in a one stop shop, but not if prices have been hiked excessively by 10/20% or more.

I think pricing errors on items/receipts is either they keyed in the item/code/price/wrong barcode wrong on the computer into the database, although I thought it was automatically distributed from HQ via a network, although some stores may have price differences for the local market or to compete locally and the store overrides manually, sometimes incorrectly.

Also if item doesn't scan and the cashier enters the price manually, incorrectly.