Asda Mispricing

[SabreSheep]

Dear Mr Clarke

 

This morning I took my first visit to one of your stores alongside my Mother.

 

49 High St, West End, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 3DQ

 

I was impressed with the layout, the presentation and despite a few availability issues probably due to the "Fresh Delivery" that had just arrived was generally impressed with my visit at that stage.

 

The member of staff who was replenishing the delivery displayed excellent customer service and even went to search the delivery for one of the fresh "Gluten free" products that we required. Even though it was not there, the effort was appreciated.

 

Unfortunately Despite all this effort and attention to detail, it was undermined at the self service checkout. After doing my mothers shopping, I had 4 items from 3 different product lines for my personal shopping. This was the Smokey BBQ Chicken Wrap and 3 x Cup a soups.

 

When scanning through the till I noticed after I sub-totaled that the final price was not correct. Upon checking the totals again it appeared that the Soups were scanning through at £1.19 and not the £1 that was marked on the dump bin.

 

For reference the dump bin was filled to the top of these "Cup A Soups" with two a4 size signs saying £1 marked in red. Very catchy!

 

At this point I called over the staff member to alert her to the problem. I took her to the dump bin and she removed the signs and accessed the till to correct the price for me. It is then that she noticed the wrap had a £2 sticker on it that even I had missed and corrected that price too.

 

Again Her service was fantastic and I cannot fault her service.

 

My concerns are that Has I been shopping with more items and not noticed the mistake myself, or had a bigger shop then this overcharge may have gone unnoticed. I am usually good on picking up details and even I missed the mistake with the wrap. A large number of the demographic in that area are elderly shoppers one being my Grandma who may well not have been in the position to spot the errors. This obviously leaves me with some concern especially as essentially I was nearly overcharged for 4 out of my 4 items! that 100% failure rate.

 

What is important to me when I shop are the normal things.

Quality

Price

Presentation

Convenience

 

and Trust.

 

I trust that procedures are in place to prevent me being overcharged. As in this case price checking and POS checking routines appeared not to have been followed or a technical error has occurred. This means I would now not trust the companies price checking procedures and be inconvenienced by double checking everything every time I purchase. This obviously makes the shopping trip even more inconvenient and makes it more than likely I will return to one of your competitors which wastes everything that was good about the visit.

 

I would be grateful if you could arrange for this situation to be investigated and efforts and action taken to restore my faith in ASDA. I would also be grateful if my positive comments could be shared with the team that actually delivered excellent service.

 

In order to assist your investigation I have attached a scan copy of my receipt. I also hope you find my comments useful in helping to continue to maintain and improve standards.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

Mr BLOBBY

[belfast4]

Dear Mr Clarke

 

 

 

This morning I took my first visit to one of your stores alongside my Mother.

 

 

 

49 High St, West End, Southampton, Hampshire SO30 3DQ

 

 

 

I was impressed with the layout, the presentation and despite a few availability issues probably due to the "Fresh Delivery" that had just arrived was generally impressed with my visit at that stage.

 

 

 

The member of staff who was replenishing the delivery displayed excellent customer service and even went to search the delivery for one of the fresh "Gluten free" products that we required. Even though it was not there, the effort was appreciated.

 

 

 

Unfortunately Despite all this effort and attention to detail, it was undermined at the self service checkout. After doing my mothers shopping, I had 4 items from 3 different product lines for my personal shopping. This was the Smokey BBQ Chicken Wrap and 3 x Cup a soups.

 

 

 

When scanning through the till I noticed after I sub-totaled that the final price was not correct. Upon checking the totals again it appeared that the Soups were scanning through at £1.19 and not the £1 that was marked on the dump bin.

 

 

 

For reference the dump bin was filled to the top of these "Cup A Soups" with two a4 size signs saying £1 marked in red. Very catchy!

 

 

 

At this point I called over the staff member to alert her to the problem. I took her to the dump bin and she removed the signs and accessed the till to correct the price for me. It is then that she noticed the wrap had a £2 sticker on it that even I had missed and corrected that price too.

 

 

 

Again Her service was fantastic and I cannot fault her service.

 

 

 

My concerns are that Has I been shopping with more items and not noticed the mistake myself, or had a bigger shop then this overcharge may have gone unnoticed. I am usually good on picking up details and even I missed the mistake with the wrap. A large number of the demographic in that area are elderly shoppers one being my Grandma who may well not have been in the position to spot the errors. This obviously leaves me with some concern especially as essentially I was nearly overcharged for 4 out of my 4 items! that 100% failure rate.

 

 

 

What is important to me when I shop are the normal things.

 

Quality

 

Price

 

Presentation

 

Convenience

 

 

 

and Trust.

 

 

 

I trust that procedures are in place to prevent me being overcharged. As in this case price checking and POS checking routines appeared not to have been followed or a technical error has occurred. This means I would now not trust the companies price checking procedures and be inconvenienced by double checking everything every time I purchase. This obviously makes the shopping trip even more inconvenient and makes it more than likely I will return to one of your competitors which wastes everything that was good about the visit.

 

 

 

I would be grateful if you could arrange for this situation to be investigated and efforts and action taken to restore my faith in ASDA. I would also be grateful if my positive comments could be shared with the team that actually delivered excellent service.

 

 

 

In order to assist your investigation I have attached a scan copy of my receipt. I also hope you find my comments useful in helping to continue to maintain and improve standards.

 

 

 

Yours Sincerely

 

 

 

Mr BLOBBY

 

 

 

 

unfortunately this is very common in asda I take photos with my mobile every week when shopping in asda, because the items are priced differently in a couple of places in the store.

 

when it is then rung through at the wrong price I show them the photo of the price that I picked the item from I would say this would happen 3 times out of every 4 times in asda. I check the price of everything because asda seem to be the worst at this.

 

if you don't spot at the till you then go to customer services where you are treated as if you are in the wrong for asking for your 29 pence back or whatever it may be.

[fletch70]

What the need to realise is the possible penalty they face if they were to have an audit.

[SabreSheep]

I agree

The system Im used to working with was simple.

All price changes would be printed overnight

These were put out before opening the store for trade,

The process of putting them out was scan old ticket/pos

put new one in

Scan new one.

 

Once that was done for all price changes the back office counter was reduced to zero. You were not allowed to trade with any "Price Increases" outstanding in order to remain legal.

[Surfer01]

We have shopped in two different ADSAs in tow different towns and were caught on both occasions. We will not use another ASDA shop preferring to drive an extra 10 miles to another supermarket (Not Tesco). Seems overcharging and (mis-representation) is common. When I say misrepresentation it is not misrepresentation in its true form. ASDA advertise goods are a lower price and they look the same as in any other store, but the quantity is less. We never knew that 1.5l bottles of Coke existed until we went to ASDA!

[fletch70]

You need to remember that these days the power of the supermarkets is such that manufacturers do what they want. A company like WalMart has such huge buying power that when they say jump the likes of Coke and pepsiCo say how high.

[SabreSheep]

Good Afternoon Mr EVILSHEEP

Thank you for taking the time to contact Andy Clarke regarding your visit to our Southampton West End store. As part of Andy's team, he's asked me to investigate and respond directly on his behalf.

I'm sorry the products you selected scanned at a different price to the advertised price, however I'm glad this was quickly amended by our Checkout Host for you. I've spoken to XXXXXXXX the Duty Manager in store and made him aware of your feedback.

He advised the shelf edge price changes are done between 7 and 10am, to ensure they reflect the correct scanning price at the checkout. It may have been on this occasion, the price change colleague hadn't reached the department for the cup a soups, however we wouldn't want this to affect our customers time in the store. James will monitor this with his team and look into the steps that can be taken to increase the efficiency of this process.

I'm pleased you found the store well presented in general and my colleagues provided excellent customer service while assisting you, it's always great to hear our colleagues are happy to help in the stores. XXXXX will ensure this success is celebrated with XXXXX, the Store Manager, and the entire store team.

Having checked our pricing history for the BBQ chicken wrap, this product appears to have only ever been priced at £2, so I'm unable to explain why this scanned at £2.40. I have raised this with our Central Pricing Team to investigate and ensure a similar error doesn't happen again in the future.

I've also arranged for a £5 gift card to be posted to you, as a gesture of goodwill, to apologise for any inconvenience. Please allow 7-10 days for these to reach you. I hope this and the actions I've told you we're taking goes some way to restoring your faith in us and we'll welcome you into one of our stores again soon.

Thanks again for sharing your experience with XXXXX and if there is anything else I can help you with, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Kind Regards

XXXXXX XXXXX

Executive Relations

 

----------------------------------

OK a fair response I think. They need to change their routine though. I will suggest that they split their price changes into END OF OFFERS+ Increases from Decreases and that in order to remain legal they would have to have the former completed before start of trade.

 

[citizenB]

IMHO, £5.00 is a bit mean !

 

 

However, a result. Well done

[kbones]

A result nonetheless

[otto1357]

We have shopped in two different ADSAs in tow different towns and were caught on both occasions. We will not use another ASDA shop preferring to drive an extra 10 miles to another supermarket (Not Tesco). Seems overcharging and (mis-representation) is common. When I say misrepresentation it is not misrepresentation in its true form. ASDA advertise goods are a lower price and they look the same as in any other store, but the quantity is less. We never knew that 1.5l bottles of Coke existed until we went to ASDA!

 

I went to my local shop, we priced two discount items, olive oil at £7 reduced to £3 and a 6 pack tins of cat food at £3 reduced price.

 

We were charged at the till £7 for the oil and £3 and £3.75 for two packs of the cat food. (different flavours but otherwise exactly the same and both reduced.

 

The service was unhelpful as we had to go to customer service as the payment was made. The wait and delay for them to check was unreasonable. We rejected the oil but took the cat food at the wrong price but I think it is pretty poor especially the olive oil which at that price would have been bought by a lot of people.

 

It is only because we had a few items that we spotted it.

 

Sharp practise at best and theft / fraud / misrepresentation most like??

 

I keep telling my wife we need to use another shop !!!

[king12345]

I have seen the olive oil business myself.

Half price on the shelf and full price at the till.

Always check your receipt!