Asda home deliveries
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For decades we've been able to get some of our groceries delivered to our door; but now, with most big supermarkets offering home delivery, an increasing number of us can get everything we need without leaving our homes. We spent £2.6 billion on online food shopping in 2008 - and it's one part of the economy that shows no signs of slowing down.
Like many of us, mum of four, Laura Ashurst from Skelmersdale in Lancashire, leads a hectic life. Added to that, she doesn't have a car so home delivery is very convenient. All the major supermarkets that offer a home delivery service deliver to her house - except Asda.
Asda did deliver to Laura, without a problem, for 18 months. Then suddenly, one day, she logged on to do her shopping as normal and a message appeared, reading: "We're sorry, Asda Online Grocery Shopping does not currently deliver to your area."
This was a blow particularly because Duncan the cat turns his nose up at non-Asda cat food.
We thought we'd test out who does and who doesn't deliver to Laura. We had no problem booking and receiving Tesco and Sainsbury's deliveries to Laura's door. Asda wouldn't deliver to Laura's house but they would deliver to the houses just behind hers. Those houses have a different postcode but some of them are a mere 25 yards away.
To prove it, we booked a delivery to one of the neighbour's houses and, indeed, Asda delivered the goods. The Asda driver didn't want to be on camera but he told us that he thought that it might be because of a security problem. Asda confirmed this to Watchdog. But this seems strange when security isn't an issue just 25 yards away and that they've never given Laura that explanation. When Laura called Asda's Customer Services, they gave her three possible reasons why she was no longer getting a delivery: either the store couldn't cope with the demand in the area; that there wasn't enough demand in the area; or that there was a technical difficulty with her postcode.
Laura has been left confused, especially as she's still receiving emails from Asda with home delivery offers that, when she tries to order, she can't get, such as: "Free delivery on your grocery shop. Don't miss out." As a small compensation we ordered some Asda cat food for Duncan in our delivery, so someone's happy.
Asda's response
"This was not an easy decision to make but we will not put the safety of our drivers at risk. On this occasion, we have let a number of customers down with this silly situation and we're keen to resolve it. Therefore, as most of the incidents took place in the evening, on a trial basis Asda Home Shopping will accept orders from the 11 postcodes with deliveries made in the morning and afternoon only. We believe that it will ensure customers can receive home shopping from Asda while we're able to protect the safety of our colleagues."
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We only ever used Asda home delivery once, what a mistake, a 2 hour delivery slot and missed it by over 3 hours. We rang 3 times and couldn't get a straight answer, I eventually had to do shopping at our nearest store only to discover when I got home they had just arrived. No apology and just a £10 credit on our next shop which remains unused as we don't trust them anymore. We now have a car and can we we like and when we like.
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