Asda’s new price-comparison guarantee certainly sounds tantalising. If your shopping basket isn’t at least 10% cheaper than its rivals it will refund the difference in shopping vouchers. Will you be giving it a go?
In the name of work research I headed down to my nearest store to take Asda’s guarantee at its ‘copper-bottomed’ word.
It’s pretty straightforward: buy at least eight grocery items, keep hold of the receipt then input the details into its price matcher tool after 9am the following day.
How does it work?
Powered by supermarket comparison engine MySupermarket, the tool looks across comparable products offered by Tesco et al (but not budget supermarkets like Lidl or Aldi) to tot up how much you would have paid if you’d shopped there instead.
The scores are in on my £45.12 shop. As you can see from the screengrab below (click to enlarge), Asda was the cheapest – but not always by 10%.
That means I now have an Asda shopping voucher worth £1.08 at my disposal, calculated against the closest rival – Tesco. A bit of extra money back at the end of what was already a cheaper shop is certainly nothing to be sniffed at. But it’s not always as clear cut as it might seem.
Not all items included
On closer inspection, a notable number of products are excluded from the calculations, because ‘no equivalent item’ can be found for comparison by MySupermarket.
Asda says about 10% of its grocery stock isn’t included in the scheme. And while some discounts such as buy-one-get-one-free offers are counted, others – where the item offered free is different to the standard-price item, for example – aren’t.
Of 24 grocery items in my shopping basket, only half were included in the Morrisons price comparison. Own-brand or not, I was surprised to see commonplace items such as a 500g pack of British steak mince, a pack of three red onions and a bag of Asda ‘Extra Special’ Marilyn potatoes excluded.
Is the price right at Asda?
Quirks of the system aside, this price guarantee extension will go down well with shoppers looking for ways to beat rising food costs. That said, low prices alone weren’t enough to impress Which? Members about Asda in our last supermarket satisfaction survey – look out for new results later this month.
Will the price guarantee lure you to spend at an Asda till in the near future? I’m yet to be completely convinced – but then again, I do need to get back there within 28 days if I want to spend my voucher.
Loading ...
