Have ASDA broken their website?

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I have been experiencing problems this week accessing ASDA's grocieries website when using the Opera browser. Below is ASDA's response to my first email which I forwarded to Opera Software.

QUOTE:

""Thank you for your email.

I’m sorry that you were experiencing some difficulties with our groceries
website.

Please check the following as these are the minimum requirements for the ASDA Groceries website to run smoothly:

· Please run ASDA Groceries with Internet explorer 6 or more.

OR

· Firefox 3.5 and above

· Cookies should be enabled on the computer you're using to access the Groceries Website

· Delete browsing history and clear cookies to ensure that the
website runs smoothly

If you are still having difficulty; please contact us, so we can look into
this matter for you.

You are a valued customer and your concerns and needs are our priority.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this matter.

Regards,

Roan Goliath

ASDA Home Shopping Team"

Dear Roan

Far from addressing the matter you have sent me a stock reply directing me to use either of two non-standards compliant browsers which I find surprising. As it happens I am using Firefox 5 to send this as I am unable to access your support page via Opera. I do however prefer not to use Firefox for a number of reasons, not least that I have a higher level of security implemented on my Opera installation and it is indeed web standards compliant. Your shopping site worked last week on Opera and I have not updated Opera or any other components or add-ins since so I would assume that you have either altered your site to redirect to the mobile version when Opera is the detected browser or have made some other change to the code which now renders it impossible using Opera 11.50 to render the site correctly. Not everyone who uses Opera uses it on a phone or tablet device. I have placed an order this week via my mother's account (who I normally shop for) using Firefox but I don't intend to continue using that browser. Can you please advise me what you can do to allow me to continue shopping with ASDA while using a standards compliant browser. I have also submitted a bug report to Opera Software in case there is a bug though, as I have said, there have been no changes to the installation since it last
worked properly.""

I forwarded them this and their reply was:

"Thank you for your email.

I’m sorry that you’re experiencing difficulty browsing the Home Shopping website with the Opera system; I do understand how frustrating this must be.

As my colleague has advised in his email, the website is most compatible with Internet explorer 6 and Firefox 3.5 and above.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention and allowing me to help you with this, as we value your custom.

Regards,

Kyle Smith

ASDA Home Shopping Team"

So basically they are saying that yes, our site is broken and if you want to use it you will need to use non standard browsers - now go away. Has anyone else experienced a similar problem recently with Opera or any other browser? I have been confined to home for some time due to illness and have been relying on ADSA and Tesco home deliveries for my shopping as these are the only companies who deliver in my home area. If they refuse to fix their website I will be stuck with only one choice from now on. Let me know if you have also had problems.

libertysurf

Hi – I did a search and found your post as I too have had problems, and I also use Opera. I have an order sitting there for tomorrow’s delivery that I have managed to move to September and I hope that by then the site is sorted out or I will have to cancel it.
I only managed to put in the order by using mySupermarket.com first and sending the order to ASDA that way. The ASDA site is appalling now. I cannot even see the contact us tab. Everything is compressed so it is well nigh impossible to search for items.
The replier to your query is having a laugh and only when ASDA suffers a reduction in orders will they take it seriously.
I was going to draw it to their attention, which is why I searched for the contact us tab. It has moved from where it used to be; to completely off the page.
Sad, I wanted the order, but only if I could make a few adjustments.
This internet shopping is supposed to save us time – sometimes I wonder!

Helix

Firefox 3.5 is standards compliant (plus they do say and above so that should include the latest Firefox 6), I'm not saying its right that the site doesn't work in Opera but they haven't told you that you must use a non standards compliant browser. Opera has less than 2% marketshare so its probably not on the top of ASDAs list of priorities.

corbyboy

Specifically what is the problem you experience when using Opera? Is Opera specifically excluded or are there some errors that it can't handle?

tarball

Helix wrote: »

Firefox 3.5 is standards compliant (plus they do say and above so that should include the latest Firefox 6), I'm not saying its right that the site doesn't work in Opera but they haven't told you that you must use a non standards compliant browser. Opera has less than 2% marketshare so its probably not on the top of ASDAs list of priorities.

I use opera for three reasons.

1. It is more compliant than Firefox in the Web Standards Project Acid tests - 100%.
2. It has a superior interface from the point of view of customisation, mouse control and integration (I have used it since it was a chargeable product for this very reason).
3. Opera haven't adopted a crazy release cycle with a new version appearing every few weeks.

I would suggest to to ASDA if they feel they can afford to throw away 2% of their sales in a recession through pig-headednes, they are luckier than moist companies.

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corbyboy wrote: »

Specifically what is the problem you experience when using Opera? Is Opera specifically excluded or are there some errors that it can't handle?

Basically, when I try to visit the ASDA groceries site, I am redirected to the mobile site. There is a link there to take you to the desktop site but all that happens is you are then redirected straight back to the mobile site. On a desktop, the mobile site isn't good, in fact it is barely usable. I suspect that since Opera is used on a lot of mobile devices they have decided to redirect page requests from Opera to the mobile site (ignoring the user agent set in the browser). Through some laziness in coding, they haven't distinguished between Opera for desktop and opera Mobile / Mini and are also ignoring the user agent the browser is reporting. Their laziness and lack of customer care also means they don't care less as they seem to have no intention of fixing their site. I thought the days of "This site is designed to work with X or Y browser, download it from here" were over. Not at ASDA.

tarball

libertysurf wrote: »

Hi – I did a search and found your post as I too have had problems, and I also use Opera. I have an order sitting there for tomorrow’s delivery that I have managed to move to September and I hope that by then the site is sorted out or I will have to cancel it.
I only managed to put in the order by using mySupermarket.com first and sending the order to ASDA that way. The ASDA site is appalling now. I cannot even see the contact us tab. Everything is compressed so it is well nigh impossible to search for items.
The replier to your query is having a laugh and only when ASDA suffers a reduction in orders will they take it seriously.
I was going to draw it to their attention, which is why I searched for the contact us tab. It has moved from where it used to be; to completely off the page.
Sad, I wanted the order, but only if I could make a few adjustments.
This internet shopping is supposed to save us time – sometimes I wonder!

I feel for you! I like ASDA generally as a shop. Since I became ill I haven't been able to visit so deliveries have become quite important. I have stopped ordering from them too. Hopefully when their sales decrease, they might ask their web designers why?

PWhiteside

corbyboy wrote: »

Specifically what is the problem you experience when using Opera? Is Opera specifically excluded or are there some errors that it can't handle?

I would say they are excluding it, many organisations do like google (try to set a background on google.com, can't do it. Set opera to mask as firefox so that it says hi I'm firefox to google and it works perfectly. This issue is apparent across the Internet which is supposedly free and open)

Asda.com works fine but when clicking on groceries you are directed to m.groceries.asda.com the "m." signifies mobile version. There is no reason for the direct only that asda have coded it so.

It feels like discrimination against opera and it's users.

SOLUTION:
To get around this click the "Desktop Version" link at the bottom of the page.

Heisenberg_2

Hey here's another solution. Stop being so precious and use a browser that works with the sites you want to visit?

I think they may be free to download...

PWhiteside

Heisenberg wrote: »

Hey here's another solution. Stop being so precious and use a browser that works with the sites you want to visit?

I think they may be free to download...

But but dude! It does work.

PWhiteside wrote: »

SOLUTION:
To get around this click the "Desktop Version" link at the bottom of the page.