gave up on Asda when I moved near to both an Aldi and a Lidl, both are head and shoulders above Asda which has gone downhill badly in the last couple of years IMO, their fresh produce being particularly poor.
Asda... Chosen by who?
2 of 2
Using the term "ASDA bashing" to describe unfavourable comments re ASDA quality and prices implies some kind of bias or unfair criticism???
"Chosen for you" is a sales gimmick based on the implication that ASDA have lots of customers choosing certain products.
Anyone really wanting to exercise consumer power should try shopping elsewhere to see how ASDA prices and quality compare, e.g. try Aldi or Lidl, and save at least 20%.
No gimmicks like: Roll Back, or complicated Price Comparison schemes, or a quid off petrol if you choose to spend an extra 20% or so on your shopping, just lower prices provided without any attempt to insult your intelligence by offering daft "money saving" gimmicks.
More about price bashing, than store bashing.
"Chosen for you" is a sales gimmick based on the implication that ASDA have lots of customers choosing certain products.
Anyone really wanting to exercise consumer power should try shopping elsewhere to see how ASDA prices and quality compare, e.g. try Aldi or Lidl, and save at least 20%.
No gimmicks like: Roll Back, or complicated Price Comparison schemes, or a quid off petrol if you choose to spend an extra 20% or so on your shopping, just lower prices provided without any attempt to insult your intelligence by offering daft "money saving" gimmicks.
More about price bashing, than store bashing.
Is 'chosen by you' something that is mainly put on their ready-meals? Or is it a wide variety of products? We buy some smart-price stuff at ASDA, beans and tomatoes for example.
Their long, unsliced wholemeal loaves are a bit special. I don't know why - it's only bread, but I greatly prefer it to any other.
I stopped going in since they decimated their vegetarian section.
I stopped going in since they decimated their vegetarian section.
Originally Posted by confuddled:
“NO, it's not based on sales volumes as far as I believe.
They ran an ad campaign a couple of years ago pushing the " chosen by you " range on the merits that if it wasn't passed by a group of tasters it didn't make it onto the range ....... Surely it must differ from the regular stuff otherwise what's the point of it and the point of the cost of special packaging etc.”
“NO, it's not based on sales volumes as far as I believe.
They ran an ad campaign a couple of years ago pushing the " chosen by you " range on the merits that if it wasn't passed by a group of tasters it didn't make it onto the range ....... Surely it must differ from the regular stuff otherwise what's the point of it and the point of the cost of special packaging etc.”
You may be right, but you'd be naive to think you must be right
Stores will do anything to sell more. One of the most obvious things if a product isn't selling well is to change the packaging or give it a sticker, award or designation. After all, it's cheaper than changing the actual product
Originally Posted by Hypnodisc:
“You may be right, but you'd be naive to think you must be right
Stores will do anything to sell more. One of the most obvious things if a product isn't selling well is to change the packaging or give it a sticker, award or designation. After all, it's cheaper than changing the actual product”
“You may be right, but you'd be naive to think you must be right
Stores will do anything to sell more. One of the most obvious things if a product isn't selling well is to change the packaging or give it a sticker, award or designation. After all, it's cheaper than changing the actual product
”
Eh? I'm not saying I'm right and I'm not making any claims on the products in a store having been pre tasted by a panel or group of tasters nationally, they are
I'm saying that what I did buy was tasteless, poor quality food and surely a quiche is not that hard to perfect.
Your the one who waded in not quite knowing what you were talking about with your claim that the range was merely based on sales.
Our biggest range is Chosen by you where every single product is tried, tasted and approved by the people who matter most – shoppers like you – before they are allowed on to the shelves.
An independent research company goes out on to the street in 70 towns and cities across the UK to find a broad range of people who shop at different supermarkets.
They invite them to blind taste-testing sessions where they are asked to review and rate each product.
Only the ones that pass the taste tests are allowed into the Chosen by you range.
Since the launch of Chosen by you in October 2010 more than 7000 products have been given the thumbs-up in 400,000 taste tests.
http://your.asda.com/about-asda/food-at-asda
Easily found if people would only take the time to look.
An independent research company goes out on to the street in 70 towns and cities across the UK to find a broad range of people who shop at different supermarkets.
They invite them to blind taste-testing sessions where they are asked to review and rate each product.
Only the ones that pass the taste tests are allowed into the Chosen by you range.
Since the launch of Chosen by you in October 2010 more than 7000 products have been given the thumbs-up in 400,000 taste tests.
http://your.asda.com/about-asda/food-at-asda
Easily found if people would only take the time to look.
Originally Posted by confuddled:
“Eh? I'm not saying I'm right and I'm not making any claims on the products in a store having been pre tasted by a panel or group of tasters nationally, they are
I'm saying that what I did buy was tasteless, poor quality food and surely a quiche is not that hard to perfect.
Your the one who waded in not quite knowing what you were talking about with your claim that the range was merely based on sales.”
“Eh? I'm not saying I'm right and I'm not making any claims on the products in a store having been pre tasted by a panel or group of tasters nationally, they are
I'm saying that what I did buy was tasteless, poor quality food and surely a quiche is not that hard to perfect.
Your the one who waded in not quite knowing what you were talking about with your claim that the range was merely based on sales.”
I don't understand this sentence
Chosen by you is a marketing gimmick pure and simple, designed to attract weak minded consumers who are gulled by meaningless terms.
Originally Posted by Gerry Mandarin:
“Our biggest range is Chosen by you where every single product is tried, tasted and approved by the people who matter most – shoppers like you – before they are allowed on to the shelves.
An independent research company goes out on to the street in 70 towns and cities across the UK to find a broad range of people who shop at different supermarkets.
They invite them to blind taste-testing sessions where they are asked to review and rate each product.
Only the ones that pass the taste tests are allowed into the Chosen by you range.
Since the launch of Chosen by you in October 2010 more than 7000 products have been given the thumbs-up in 400,000 taste tests.
http://your.asda.com/about-asda/food-at-asda
Easily found if people would only take the time to look.”
“Our biggest range is Chosen by you where every single product is tried, tasted and approved by the people who matter most – shoppers like you – before they are allowed on to the shelves.
An independent research company goes out on to the street in 70 towns and cities across the UK to find a broad range of people who shop at different supermarkets.
They invite them to blind taste-testing sessions where they are asked to review and rate each product.
Only the ones that pass the taste tests are allowed into the Chosen by you range.
Since the launch of Chosen by you in October 2010 more than 7000 products have been given the thumbs-up in 400,000 taste tests.
http://your.asda.com/about-asda/food-at-asda
Easily found if people would only take the time to look.”
There are many ways to interpret that. Was one of the options 'not as s--t as the other choices'?
I'm just fooling around here, I can't remember if I've ever had their 'chosen by you' products or what they tasted like.
Originally Posted by Hypnodisc:
“You may be right, but you'd be naive to think you must be right
Stores will do anything to sell more. One of the most obvious things if a product isn't selling well is to change the packaging or give it a sticker, award or designation. After all, it's cheaper than changing the actual product”
“You may be right, but you'd be naive to think you must be right
Stores will do anything to sell more. One of the most obvious things if a product isn't selling well is to change the packaging or give it a sticker, award or designation. After all, it's cheaper than changing the actual product
”
Changing the packaging is also another way that some manufacturers raise prices. They make the overall size of the product smaller but keep the price the same, so you're getting less for your money. I don't know about ready meals, but my daughter bought a bag of Skittles the other day and even she noticed it was smaller/lighter than before, but the price hadn't changed.
They might also 're-brand' their food if they want to change the list of ingredients, even if they haven't actually changed anything. When high-fructose corn syrup got a lot of negative publicity, they opted to give it a different name so people wouldn't automatically see a red flag when reading the label/ingrediens.
Originally Posted by evil c:
“Chosen by you is a marketing gimmick pure and simple, designed to attract weak minded consumers who are gulled by meaningless terms.”
“Chosen by you is a marketing gimmick pure and simple, designed to attract weak minded consumers who are gulled by meaningless terms.”
Of course. Using an 'independent company' is about as meaningless as using an 'independent company' to build the lorries they use to transport goods. They're hardly going to have their own dedicated taste test division, so they hire a company to do it for them, just like they turn to Scania or whoever for their lorries.
They only claim the company is independent, not the survey itself, which was of course commissioned and paid for by... Asda. It's not like an independent "Which?" review.
So, like all of these other meaningless marketing gimmicks, the results were all good news to the company paying for it. There's no context to these tests at all. What was compared. What questions were actually asked. How were the results filtered and interpreted, etc etc.
The only meaningful thing about 'Chosen by you' is that it is chosen by you if you choose to take it from the shelf.
Ultimately, there are 'value' ranges which are cheap and nasty. The normal range which provides the bulk of a supermarket's profits, so this is where they play most of their games. And the luxury range, that uses better ingredients and costs more. None of it guarantees a better taste, it can only be used by the buyer as a guide.
I've tasted plenty of Asda 'Extra Special', Lidl 'Delux' or Morrisons 'The Best' products that were not remotely special (and in some cases too posh and clever for their own good so I threw them out after one bite), and others that were much nicer than the normal versions.
I'm yet to buy a bottle of Asda's 'Extra Special' or Aldi's "Exquisite Collection" wine that made me think "wow", or even think it was worth the price. And that's despite experts like Oz Clarke swearing blind that supermarket own brand wine offers the best value.
Oh, and another gimmick Asda use is to label certain products as "Recommended", again without any context to explain what this actually means. This term is usually applied to products that are very often on special offer - during the periods they're not on special offer, I think to confuse casual buyers into thinking the item's reduced. If Asda 'recommend' one product, does this mean they do not recommend the others, or no longer recommend you buy that product after they remove the 'Recommended' label?
2 of 2
