As Christmas approaches many of us will be heading to your local supermarket to do the "BIG" Christmas Shop. Buying your Turkey, selecting your cheeses and picking out the perfect puddings.
Well this week the family and i headed over to Asda in Glasshougton to test out their newly installed Scan and Go service. For those of you that are not familiar with the Scan and Go shopping experience, all you have to do is sign-up or sign-in at the Scan and Go Station to release a handheld scanner, then scan and bag the items as you shop, using the handset provided and breeze through the dedicated checkouts.
To showcase Scan and Go at Asda we gave it ago and we have given our honest review of our experience of shopping with two boys under the age of five:
Getting Started
Upon entering the store there is a Scan and Go station within the entrance. I hadn't yet used the Scan and Go service at Asda, so i had to enter a few details which included my name, email address and phone number - this took less than a minute on the touch screen. Don't worry, the details you submit will never be shared outside of Asda! Upon my next visit i can simply access a handset by adding my mobile number.Once you have entered your number or have sign-up a green light will flash on a device informing you that it is that device you need to take from the station. The handset you take will have your name on the screen, so if you pick-up the wrong one you will know about it.
Scan and Go Shopping on the move
Once you have your devices you can start your shop by simply scanning the items you are buying and placing them back in your trolley. The handset was light and easy to use, the screen was clear and even my three year and five year old took it for a spin. Many of the products we purchased were easy to scan and the bar-codes were in accessible places.
I personally found having the total of my shop displayed very useful, as we like to stick to a weekly budget when we shop and this saved one of us having to added up our purchases on a calculator. Every now and then we did scan items a couple of times more than we needed, but it was super-easy to delete the items from the device!
Festive Treats At Asda
On our way around we made sure we picked up some of the essential Christmas treats like a Christmas pudding, a yule log and some mince-pies, as well as some ginger-bread Wensleydale cheese and some pigs in blanket crisps!
Scan and Go Check-outs
Once we were done we headed to the Scan and Go self check-out area. The section had four touch-screens, one scale for weighting and pricing loose items, as well as having an employee designated to the area to help out with any assistants during the check-out process.When you are ready to pay all you need to do is scan the QR code on the checkout screen, then present the handset barcode to be scanned. It will ask you if you were able to scan every item during your shop, in our case one item wasn't able to be scanned as it has been reduced in price, so the assistant came over to help by adding it on to the final bill. Once we had all our items all that was left to do was to pay with a card, as they don't take cash.
What did i make of Scan and Go?
Honestly..... i loved it and i will be using it whenever i can. Why you ask? Well for me shopping with two young boys i find the check-out process the most stressful part of the shopping experience. By using the Scan and Go service the check-out process was far quicker and stress-free.As i said previously i found having the total price of the shop on the handset helpful as we usually work to a weekly budget. This helped us decided on selecting luxury items over essentials and at times we did make trade-offs based on our previous purchases.
Not only that but i found that the kids were more than happy to help with shopping, which was great and it meant that they were pre-occupied with shopping rather than kicking-off about someone they want to buy (which they can't have or eat). For any parents a quicker and tantrum free shop is highly sort-after, so i recommend that anyone with kids give the Scan and Go handsets a go when you next pop-in to an Asda store.
Please remember to take enough bags, we made the rookie mistake of waiting until the end to purchase more bags.
If you want to find out more about the Scan and Go handsets and service at Asda i recommend watching this video or visiting their website here to read more.
