Andy ASDA say 'sorry'

Following heavy defections by shoppers to Aldi and Lidl retail chiefs at WalMart may be wondering why ASDA's customers across the Pond are choosing to lay their sheckel at competitors' tills. TheBigRetort....

ASDA, Deptford.... Time: Late afternoon-ish. As previously reported...

Before he would allow me to leave the store the security guard wanted to search my shopping bag. He wouldn't say why. After some rummaging he failed to find whatever he was searching for. He waved me off - without apology. When she listened to my complaint at the telephone the new store's manager wasn't at all happy. The 'incident' - as she termed the illegal search - was not the face of ASDA that she would like to present to the people of Deptford. The guard would be... 'retrained'. She seemed keen for me to accept the 'good will' voucher... I resisted. I didn't want to darken ASDA's Deptford door again. She persisted... I could use it in any ASDA store 'in England'. Letter of apology? Confirmation that the guard would be retrained? And a goodwill voucher, for an unspecified amount? No doubt the value of the voucher would match the seriousness of the incident. The ASDA price of goodwill. Less is more you know. Days passed... however when the letterbox moved it was either to the sound of the usual paraphernalia dropping to the hallway floor, or the wind. An apology - from ASDA? You‘ll be lucky, the letterbox mocked.

'Being a people person'

Andy Clarke claims in press releases that 'being a people person‘ is uppermost in his top-tips for retail success as ASDA's chief executive. If my experience was anything to go by the reality is anything but.

So TheBigretort put it to "Andy Asda"

Is ASDA (Deptford) profiling its customers based on the colour of their skin?

The question may have seemed left of the shopping aisles. But the thought had been niggling at the back of my mind like the locked wheel of a shopping trolley.

At odds with his man-of-the-people image, Lisa Sutcliffe in executive relations responded on Andy Asda's behalf:

“I’m sorry you were upset after being stopped by my colleague after you had visited the new store. If we see any suspicious behaviour then we are able to stop and request to see the contents of bags which you may have and also ask to see a receipt for those items." Sutcliffe added, ’We don’t profile shoplifters however, there are some behaviours which will arouse suspicions.’

Andy Asda-speak... Certain shoplifters display behaviour that we, err... profile.

Remarkably Sutcliffe was also claiming that ASDA is not only able to stop and request to see the contents of bags but to also see receipts for items purchased elsewhere - which a big porkie pie. (Forget English law... It's an American-owned firm. Think 'Asdanimo'.)

Andy Asda had trumped my old-race-card with a my staff get-out-of-jail-free one.

BUT... I wasn't impressed. ASDA was dealing from a stacked deck. The guard had much to gain from justifying his actions... surely Sutcliffe wouldn't be relying on his word alone - would she?

If so, CCTV would at least display what these ‘behaviours’ were. (In truth, I felt certain that the only thing it would show is my receding hairline. )

There is no smoke without fire. But there is too no fire without fuel. And even more damning to ASDA... it would reveal that it must have been something else which fuelled the guard's 'suspicions'. Some nebulous thing that was not in and of itself behavioural. The fact that the behaviour defence was placed after the manager spoke to me at the phone offering her apology and a good will voucher and staff retraining being of course notable.

Be that as it may... if Andy Asda wasn't profiling shoplifters that day - based solely on the colour of their skins - then one would have thought that such a question alone would have merited production of the CCTV evidence in support of the 'certain behaviours' excuse put forward: Because that is all it was.

ASDA TRAINING MANUAL: WHAT CONSTITUTES 'SUSPICIOUS' BEHAVIOUR'?

ANSWER: DARK SKIN. CURLY HAIR, AND LIPS THAT PUT MICK JAGGER IN THE SHADE

EXECUTIVE RELATIONS GO AWOL

Perhaps it was pure coincidence. But Sutcliffe went on annual leave, after I requested the CCTV footage. (The old annual-leave-trick is like the military AWOL.)


ASDA it transpired seemed reluctant to release footage of the incident that would confirm it had acted correctly, without bias, and within the law. Three things that it did not do that day, unfortunately.


However, I pressed on...


It is oft stated that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing... however this seemed to be really a case of Asda Andy fully realising what the hand was doing at Deptford that day - and in which direction the middle finger may have been pointing.


Reuters: “They have all been hurt by a price war, as they attempt to stem the loss of shoppers to discounters Aldi and Lidl, and by commodity-led deflation.”


Now there's a retort... Could the former shelf-stacker from Grantham be so paranoid that when he opens a new store in Deptford, that he blames his retail losses on those that his staff claims 'we do not profile'?

In the next GRIPPING instalment, the CCTV footage goes AWOL, along with the security guard - TheBigRetort

ASDA: Racially profiling?

Andy Clarke, the rabidly rugger-mad chief executive of ASDA, lists ‘being a people person‘ amongst his top tips. It is this dealing directly with the shopper that catapulted the 17 year-old shelf stacker in Grantham to an “all together better” - is it really? - stewardship on the top rung of the Walmart retail ladder. However when a question was put to chief executive Andy on the racial profiling of his customers, there ASDA be silence. TheBigRetort

The new ASDA customer-friendly store in Deptford High Street is said to be one of the smallest London retail stores. However, part of the retail group's ‘southern strategy‘, I was impressed with its size and space which gives the shopper the impression of the freedom to roam the aisles. Unfortunately it was a freedom that was not reserved for all its customers.

As I made my way through the exit the guard stopped me, abruptly, and demanded - quite loudly - to look inside my Morrison's bag for life. Why?

He declared that I had not paid at the till for the items inside.

Which was technically true; I hadn't.

He also claimed ‘by law‘ - which law he didn’t seem to know - that he had the right to search my Morrison's bag for life, without any reason given, and to stop me leaving, until I allowed him to do so.

A misleading set of rights if ever I felt sure... The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 gives the police statutory powers to search a person without making an arrest. But had the right now been extended to ASDA?

My own rights to one side, the ASDA guard informed me that he would physically detain me if I tried to exit the store. I tried to remonstrate... Asking him why he felt the need to look into my bag... But all to no avail. He would neither summon the manager, call the police, or conduct his search in a more private place. 

As I was by now experiencing a feeling that I can only describe as quite rage, I decided to let him have it.

The Morrison's bag for life that is.

However, there was a more compelling reason for acquiescing to his questionable demand: the more I refused the more ‘suspicious‘ I became in the eyes of 'the others'. And many eyes were upon me.

And so it was, following an open invitation by Andy Clarke to look around his new store, his 'southern strategy', that the inquisitive fingers of his security guard rifled over the pages of my free Evening Standard on a quest to find the reason behind the true decline of ASDA’s retail losses.

‘Simpleton’ was written on this guy's name badge and he nosed further into the bag like a ferret. Suddenly he found something fishy... tuna from the fishmonger on the high street, right? Casting this aside he now homed in on a brown sliced loaf. Caught bang to rights!

However, this one was crusty and very tasty, he instinctively knew it was not purchased at ASDA. (Percy Ingle’s High Class Bakers, 31-33 Deptford High Street. Established 1954. Yummy.)

His face crumbled… His accusatory eyes settled on mine. The gist went something like this.

‘Where did you buy… this?‘ He held up a large bottle of sparkling water.

Apparently not only had he been trained by ASDA, or some obscure security firm 'sarf' of the Thames, but he had the right to know.

‘Know‘… know what?

‘Everything.’

The neurons in his brain seemed to leak out of the pores of his skin as if saying surely there must be something - anything - damning.

He explored further.

'Where did you get this?’ He moved the bottle of water away as if I was going to gulp the evidence down.
‘Tesco.’
‘Where’s your receipt?'
'I don’t have one.'
'Then you can’t leave.’
'What..?'

'No receipt, you can't leave.'

‘Can you prove it’s from your store?’ I countered weakly.

He paused. ‘I don’t have to,’ he said triumphantly.

‘Look,’ I sighed, ‘do you even sell that water?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. But without irony.

‘YOU DON'T KNOW IF YOU SELL THE WATER YOU ARE ACCUSING ME OF STEALING!’

'Did I say you was stealing? I'm just giving you the opportunity to pay at the till.'  ASDA speak. It was pure Python

 ‘It could be ours,’ he countered before I drew breath. There was no end to the one liners.‘Where is your receipt?’
‘What for - water that you don’t stock?‘
‘I don’t know that - do I?’ he said dryly.
‘Did you see me put it in my bag?’
‘I don’t have to. I must see your receipt.’

'It's not from your store.'

As far as customer service was concerned, this was uniquely ASDA.

Fortunately, suddenly, just before an index finger was pushed up my backside, another member of staff joined the scrum. A look of outright uncertainty on his face. ‘We don’t sell that water,’ he said somewhat sheepishly.

In fact ASDA didn’t sell any of the items in my bag... Which is why I had not used the till.

'Well..?' I waited.

‘Okay, you can leave,’ the ASDA security guard said.

In my conversion at the telephone with ASDA headquarters I enquired if the Deptford store was - in a largely ethnically mixed area? - being targeted by dark skinned shoplifters and that this was the reason why it was seemingly specifically profiling ethnic customers: based on nothing more than "race".

The call was quickly passed via Andy Clarke's executive staff back to the Deptford branch. Manager Kerry” gamely assured me that this was 'not the case'. But conceded that members of staff would have to be 'retrained'. She also offered 'a goodwill voucher'. 

Be that as it may or may not be.  Although I didn't realise it at the time I had become the oval ball in a game of retail rugby. A curve ball meant for ASDA's chief executive had been intercepted, and passed back to its local store manager as a customer complaint.  The manager then grounded the oval ball, then placed it between the posts, or kicked it over the crossbar, into the long grass - following which the opposing team, call them the All Blacks, had been presented with a free 'good will' voucher. I didn't know how much the goodwill voucher was for but I hadn't made plans to visit Jamaica. 

That evening an ASDA home delivery van stopped and blocked my driveway. I opened the door, waiting for my letter of apology, and possibly too a case of wine from my new bezzy mate Andy. But the driver commenced delivering the shopping to the neighbour across the road. He did not apologise for blocking the driveway. ASDA it seems never does.

Demand respect or expect defeat. Rugby talk and profiles of the CEO of ASDA go hand in hand. I decided to tackle Andy on his own ground. I fired off an email. Besides seeking a written apology I suspected that the guard was part of a recruitment process to specifically use ethnic thugs to target “effnik” shoppers; thereby nixing any cries of racial prejudice if ASDA then got it wrong. There is a feeling amongst some Londoners that this is a strategy followed by the Met police in a drive to counter any claims of racial prejudice... but ASDA? In Deptford? 'You're having a laugh.

So, the question I put directly to Andy Clarke from Grantham as he sat in his ivory tower: ‘Is ASDA (Deptford) profiling its customers based on the colour of their skin?’

TheBigRetort. Coming soon... All the President's Men (and women); respond.

To go or not to go

Now that NASA has discovered water on Mars it is actually forbidden to land its craft and astronauts anywhere near it. Which rather defeats the object. What if you have a thirsty crew in search of life as we know it? Or in search of life as we don't?


Surely the rules will be bent enough to ensure that NASA boots may boldly go - yes go boldly -  where other boots have already gone before; right on the head of a little green Martian.


The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, was drafted in the late 1960s and signed by those nations interested in the preservation of celestial bodies via non-contamination. The Treaty declares:


"States shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies."


So what is 'harmful' in this context that wasn't in any other. Think Mars rovers that have already driven across the not-so arid soil? Thereby ensuring that if  those waters contain life 'as we know it' an interplanetary war of words may have already begun back on Planet Earth.

To go boldly indeed.