At Asda our mission is to be the most trusted retailer – and we know that for our customers, that means being able to trust us that they are getting the best value possible from shopping with us week in, week out.
Way back in 2010 we launched the Asda Price Guarantee (APG) – promising customers that their shopping at Asda would be 10% cheaper than the other big supermarkets, and if it wasn’t, we’d refund them the difference. The APG was a first in British retail providing customers reassurance on price, many subsequent price comparison sites are no longer operating.
The APG gave our customers reassurance that they were getting great value from Asda. But the pace of change in retail has been unrelenting and today, the APG, whilst still the iron clad promise it always was, has become less and less relevant to customers with less than 1% of customers using it. Today, customers are savvier than ever on the price of their shopping. They have more price information at their fingertips than ever and they vote with their feet if they feel a retailer is off the mark on price, and when we asked them what they wanted us to focus on more than anything – the response was clear; invest everything you can in everyday low prices. They want us to get our prices low, and keep them that way.
So, that’s what we’ve decided to do. Over the past 12 months we have invested over £100m in lowering the price of thousands of the products our customers love the most. And there’s more to come. You don’t need to take our word for it – each week the Grocer magazine visits each major retailer and check the price of a randomly selected basket of 33 products. It’s a test we’ve come top of the class in for the past 22 years in a row and a test we don’t plan on failing.
With all that in mind we’ve made the difficult decision to close the Asda Price Guarantee on the 3rd October 2018. It’s a decision we’ve not taken lightly because we love it dearly, but in reality, we know our customers don’t love it enough for us to keep it. Instead they want us to focus our investment on lowering our prices, and they’ll let us know if we’re falling out of step with the competition.
This month, we’ll be writing to our APG customers to let them know of the change, and the APG will operate as normal until 3rd October – meaning any customers who want to use it can still redeem their vouchers for 28 days from that date they receive them. And in October, customers will see another round of price reductions in their local Asda store – and more after that.
Because we’ve heard the message loud and clear and we’ll focus everything we have on ensuring they can trust us to do the right thing and offer them great value on their shopping.
