what has happened to Asda?

[KnottedTwine]

Our nearest big supermarket is an Asda, I have shopped there for most of my shopping for at least 10 years, probably more like 15. Over the last year to 18 months it's gone rapidly downhill. Although the fruit/veg sections are usually pretty full, there are large gaps in many of the ambient shelves. Random stuff like salted rice cakes I haven't seen in weeks. They seem to have people working filling the shelves during the day rather than in the evenings like they did previously. Cleanliness standards in the shop has slipped. They have started using the most awful muzak instead of artists/songs you'd recognise.

People love to moan about Brexit but none of the other local-ish stores seem to be having these issues. Yes there is an Aldi fairly close by which I'm sure has poached some of the custom but it can't be the full explanation - is this just our local store which has a crap manager, or a more general issue?

My local Asda is fine, shelves full, plenty of staff. Pretty clean too.

I was in a big Asda this morning and I was pulling my hair out. Tea bag aisle was in the one next to the sign, I could barely find anything I wanted first time of looking. The fire alarm went off for ages but no one did or said anything so you had no idea whether it was for evacuation or not and the whole place looked like it had been looted.

I used four supermarkets for delivery during the pandemic and ASDA were by far the best by a huge difference.

I used to live near that Asda back in the day (last century) and it was excellent. A trip to Owlcotes to go to Asda and M and S was a bit of a treat back then.

The Asda local to me now used to be a Co-op petrol station and convenience store, and it has gone massively downhill. The staff hate working for Asda, the quality and choice of food is terrible and they keep overcharging for goods especially anything that has a yellow reduced label on it. A lot of local people won't buy from them any more and will go to the Co-op store 2 miles away.

Weren’t Sainsbury’s buying Asda at some point?

The staff for the most part hate it and with good reason.payroll it system was changed and thousands of staff had pay problems.i know of one person it took 3 months to get her pay that just wasn't accredited to her account.

Our local Asda is always out of stock particularly in the frozen section. I have been doing a September Saver challenge on the rewards app but have had to ring up 2 weeks in a row now as the app has not acknowledged my spend. The lady I spoke to said they are aware the app has loads of problems. At least at Tesco I can see on the receipt my clubcard prices have worked.

Aye clean and go might look good on paper but doesn't work in reality.
Only 3 cleaner's left at our local Asda my dw being one of them.

I was in an Asda yesterday that’s the size of a small town. Empty shelves, couldn’t get most of the things I was in for, went to a medium-sized Tesco and got everything. I won’t bother with Asda in future.

The app and the self scan has issues. Last time I went the queue for the one till that was on was halfway down an aisle, the self scan for baskets was open but half of them didn’t work, the self scan for trolleys was closed and the scan as you shop handsets were taped off with signs saying out of order.

I was in Asda today and just thinking this! I used to go Asda quite a bit and then the Bluelight Card discountbwss massively changed to started using Sainsburys pretty much all the time as found it just as cheap as Aldi for most fresh food and can get home deliveries

I had s £55 voucher in my Asda cash pot that I needed to use up this week so went today to the huge Asda near us. Oh my God - three large brown onions which are around £1 in Sainsburys - £1.60. Barely any discounts on any type of branded yoghurt - Sainsbury's will reliably have something off either Yeo Valley or Rachel organic each week. Hardly any brown bread at 12pm?! In a massive superstore?! No chicken mini fillets. Lilies which are around £6 in Sainsburys - £8. Very limited branded fabric conditioner. Not sure if there was a problem with the freezers - but lots of them were just empty.

Terrible.

They’ve been mismanaged for years by the Issa brothers who were hopelessly out of their depth running a supermarket. Moshin Issa has now been removed and Stuart Rose is running it until a CEO can be found. Hopefully he or she will sort it out.

So very annoying. Yes, I'd like the shelves filled but there seems to staff in every other aisle, taking up so much space with massive piles of stock in tow. It makes shopping even more arduous.

The online shoppers get in my way more than shelf fillers. I know it’s not their fault, they’re doing their jobs but their cart things are huge and they often leave them in the middle of an aisle while they get what they need from one side of the aisle and I can’t get the trolley around it. I wish online orders could be picked when the shop is closed or from the distribution centre but obviously that could then be harder for the staff so it’s just an ‘in my dream world’ type wish 😂

Night shift was done away with in a lot of supermarkets.

I was thinking my local one has gone downhill. As you say, big gaps on the shelves and quite a few products have completely disappeared, i.e. they've stopped selling them as no space on the shelf.
It reminds me of what KwikSave was like years ago.

The stores are so variable. We don't have one in town but there are several with may pass through in surrounding towns from time to time. Some are neat and tidy while others are extremely disorganised. There is no consistency in where products are kept. DS2 likes their OMV cookies. In some stores they're with the free from. In another with the regular biscuits. In one large store we couldn't find them at all.

We’re fortunate, I guess, to have most big supermarkets within a few miles. I’ve been to Aldi, Asda and Sainsbury and Tesco this weekend, only briefly popped into Asda because the Timpson at Sainsbury didn’t have heels or the correct size spring for my watch. It was heaving. Sainsbury has cheap Zubrowka-£17 with the Nectar card, whoop whoop, literally the only thing I bought in there.

I did wonder why stuff seemed to be missing last time I was in Asda. Hope it improves, I use it a great deal.

This was really giving me the rage when I had food shopping to do earlier this week in Lidl 😫 just stock shelves when all shoppers leave!!

The ASDA near me is very dirty, always lots of marks and dirt on the floor, it’s an older build too with none of the glass front that were supermarkets have so it’s dingy and has no natural light inside at all. I really like George clothing for the kids but you have to check carefully as some garments have stains on them.
i hate their loyalty scheme with the cash pot I can’t get to grips with it, why not just have a loyalty card like everyone else??

Good. Not conducive to having a family life or a social life. Night shifts are hard and should only be used by those sectors who really need it e.g. NHS, emergency services etc.

I agree with you,I was just pointing out to a pp that's why you see more stock cages during the day.

I don't go in the stores but until this year I was a loyal online shopper for about 15 years. I liked the food and they were great during lockdown.
Then after the last sale it went downhill, it got to the point when they didn't even substitute so you would just get half an order, after a month of no bread or milk available I switched to Sainsburys. It is a revelation, very rarely any subs, arrive in the time slot and haven't noticed a price difference.

I do my online shop with Asda as they’re usually really good for gluten free options - plus I have always liked that they had quirky varieties of things and things I’d not seen elsewhere.
Lately, though, choices have really narrowed - there are far less new ideas and lots of items out of stock.
Their replacement choices are questionable, and prices are creeping up.
I also hate that if you need to add / change anything in your basket the evening before, you can - but have to pay again (they refund next day but it’s a pain in the arse when money is tight!)

my local store is clean enough, but staff morale is clearly at rock bottom (I’ve seen staff having full blown rows or complaining loudly about management on the shop floor more than once) and there’s often basic stuff missing - this week no basmati rice in bags smaller than 5kg, for example, and no gluten free bread where there’s usually three or four shelves full, and huge gaps in the meat shelves (higher welfare chicken was scanty, hardly any lamb, etc). Not sure if that’s an asda issue or a post brexit supply chain issue, or both, but it’s fucking annoying as the only large store near me. And yea, it’s not much cheaper than waitrose now, so considering switching back to them for my online shops.