Member Article

Asda invests in York 'gadget store'

Asda’s Monks Cross York superstore is set to become a ‘gadget store’ due to the high level of tech-savvy customers in the area.

York one of the first Asda stores to have a Drive Through Click and Collect service, it also trialled the 3D printer – a full-body scanner which creates customers’ own 6 or 8 inch 3D model.

As part of a planned upgrade to its bank of tills next month, Asda will be running a new technology trial which will see the supermarket giant invest in new retail technology for the store, supposedly cutting queue times in half.

Store manager Sally Duckering said: “Our customers love that York has been chosen as the store which tries most of the tech first.

“Not everything sees the light of day in other stores, but we get to see the art of the possible and find out if it works for customers and colleagues with the aim of enhancing choice and convenience at the checkout.

“We also get involved in developing that tech, so if something doesn’t quite work, we can feed that back so it can be changed – like the rapid scanner.

“The new version looks different to the first model we trialled last year: it’s faster, can serve more customers at the same time, can handle bigger trolley shops than originally and now has two colleagues to host it at all times rather than one.

“All these changes happened because of the feedback customers and colleagues gave us and the new version in proving very popular.

“It’s also nice to see that the changes often free colleagues up to make sure transactions go as smoothly as possible, and can focus on the famous Asda customer service with a sparkle 100% of their time.”

The changes to the store will start 5th October for 10 days with minimum disruption to customers. The tech will then be reviewed with customer and colleague feedback over the coming months.

© Copyright DS Pugh and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .