Asda - WTF is going on?

[MuggedByReality]

I went into a big out of town Asda store in the East Midlands this afternoon. The place was a chaotic shambles, it looked like some sort of organisational meltdown had happened. Empty wooden pallets scattered around. Empty shelves all over the store. Piles of boxes of stock which should have been on said shelves dumped & piled up in aisles. Massive queues at the customer service desk. Very few staff visible anywhere. I gave up & went to the nearby Sainsbury’s instead which was completely fine.

Is Asda struggling? Has anyone else noticed major problems recently or was this just one store having a bad day?

That's weird as they've just bought out a co-op garage near us. Can't be doing that badly!

I really hope it gets taken over.
It's a really poor shop that has just slid by re quality.
Haven't set foot in it since we foolishly bought a pie . All four of were shitting and vomiting.
Never again.

Our local one is grubby, expensive and really shit quality.
everything we’ve had has been shit from there, it’s a running joke in our house.

I do love George homeware though

Ours is rubbish, it's my nearest supermarket but I get an online shop from Tesco instead and top up at the retail park M&S and Waitrose. I only go to Asda if it's for something like I've run out of milk

They've also apparently had a huge fall out with each other....

This is the kind of shit that reminds me how much the UK has lost. Years of gnawing away at expectations. I hope we don’t go the same way here. It’s pretty nice having ever stocked shelves, lots of fresh produce, lovely staff, clean floors and the checkout person packs your bags for you quickly and efficiently.
I guess the more people don’t go to shops and get it online, the less incentive they have to bother keeping it nice too

Standard Saturday at the tesco store I work at. We struggle massively getting weekend staff so I imagine Asda is the same. Add in sick calls and holidays and the store is on its knees

I used to love asda
I lived up north and it was great-everythibg I needed under one roof,clean,well stocked and staff where lovely
I moved to the Midlands and we would either do aldi/tesco or aldi/asda-all fine
Then covid hit
Half the time there is nothing in stock,its dirty,staff are so rude and the quality of the food has fallen off a cliff
So we do tesco/aldi now
The only good bits from asda are the fresh flowers and they have a good selection of books
Rarely go now as its a bit further away
Asda living has fallen off a cliff too

Similar here - I have had Asda deliveries for about 15 years now and have a delivery pass. I managed to get deliveries all the way through lockdown, whilst my mother struggled with Ocado. There have been a few disappointments but in general things are in date. They have always refunded when I have asked them to. The drivers are always really nice. I would be sorry to see them close. I am in East Lancashire.

i work for them ,its like 2020 all over again with empty shelves ,they have cut back so much on the staff there is no staff to put the stock out ,which leads to an amazing amount of stock to have to write off as waste ,new chilled lines not even making to the shop floor before they have to be reduced or written off

I’m in the East Midlands and my Asda is hideous. It’s filthy, and manages to be both cluttered and empty. Stuff is on random shelves, or on the floor. Loads of stuff is damaged. There is sometimes whole aisles with nothing in them. My mum lives in the north and hers is like a normal shop.

The lighting in every Asda store makes me feel really light headed, I avoid the place I’d I can.

I went into our Chorley branch today. It was an absolute shambles. There were empty boxes on the shelves, things were pushed right to the back of the shelves so you couldn't reach them and there were no staff in sight to ask to reach stuff. Restocking trolleys, boxes etc were left in the middle of the aisles which made it difficult to walk through and reach round them to get stuff. Then, at the checkout, whilst I was finishing packing, the assistant called to her colleague on the next checkout who lent over and the checkout operator actually put her hand over the side of her mouth and whispered something to the other checkout assistant, then they both started laughing. I actually heard what they said and it wasn't about me, but I still felt it was very unprofessional behavior. It's a shame as I used to love that store but it's really gone downhill recently.

I ordered an online shop from Asda a month ago. The receipt email told me there were 12 unavailable items and 8 subs and then they didn't even show up. Never again.

My local one has a habit of making mistakes with their pricing. So they'll have a product that was previously £2 reduced to £1 as a special deal. Except when you scan it, it's actually £1.50.

Not a one off. I no longer rely on shelf prices. I used the self scan so I check each item as I shop.

I only go there because I'm shopping for someone else with brand loyalty from the 90s.

They aren't going bust or selling off stores, no idea where you've got that from! They are in the process of opening around 300 new convenience stores.

They probably had a late delivery, these things happen. This is how most supermarkets look in the middle of the night whilst being re stocked.

Thanks everyone, it’s interesting to hear about others’ experiences and about the ownership issues at Asda. When Wal-Mart was in charge it might not have been my favourite supermarket but it always seemed competently run. Based on what I saw today, that’s no longer the case, but maybe it wasn’t typical. I really hope they get their act together because of all the thousands of people who work for them.

Asda makes Aldi look posh. It's the only supermarket I refuse to go in. Our nearest one is 14 miles away which is an appropriate distance and I don't have to ever think about it 😂

I only pop in one occasionally but I have seen several Facebook posts this week about empty shelves in Asda. I think in one store the manager said they had a lot of staff off sick but it sounds more fundamental if it isn't just one branch. Thinking about it the last time I popped in there were lots of cages in the aisles with nobody actually stacking the shelves. I hope nothing happens as they are a big employer.

A former colleague of mine once found a dead frog in a prepacked salad from Waitrose - clearly you get a better quality of unwanted creature there. When he went to complain they offered him a refund which did rather seem to miss the point…

My local one is a huge one, mostly OK but randomly you'll go in and there'll be something basic completely out of stock like no eggs or no red peppers. So yes I think there's an issue with their logistics recently.

I did an online shop with them the other week and they hardly had any of the stuff I ordered. They subbed all of my snacks and my granola with dried apricots. This amounted to 11 bags of dried apricots, which I handed back to the driver obviously.

I was hopeful they were dying! Ours takes up the centre of our town and the shelves are half filled with actually out of date/ or after best before. Even obviously nasty things like gammy looking meat, but alarmingly also things like children’s yoghurts which you wouldn’t even think to check!

You have to check everything! So I don’t go. An exhausting shop. And a shame because some bits are fantastic. The baby / toddler clothes are amazing.