Up the Amazon without an Asda - Can two titans of shopping deliver?

Not such a great week for the unfortunate big shopping names that crossed the path of the News & Consumer Commentator, Jason Tanner,  and all for the sake of some glassware costing less than £20. Wednesday 28th July 2026

It's been a while since I've worn the consumer hat, but the heat must be getting to me; or to the big guys at Amazon, wherever they are based and  a rather pleasantly chilled Asda Express in Tottenham Hale, north London.

But my experience of trying to pick up a simple Amazon delivery from a cupboard next to the cigarettes at my local Asda Express does beg a few questions about the state of retail. 

It's hardly a sob story and I doubt it's unique but I've been so engrossed with efforts to help protect free speech that I feel I may have missed a steep decline in customer care and corporate problem-solving in the last 12 months or so.

As I type, I'm entering the fifth day of regularly walking down to Asda Express in the hope of picking up my goods from that cupboard. Afterall, the state-of-the-art Amazon systems have been telling me since Friday that the product is available for pick up and that I have until next Saturday before it'll be auto- returned and refunded if I fail to  pick it up. I won't be the only customer facing the problem so it won't be news to either Amazon or Asda Express.

However when I go to Asda Express (regrettably not a very busy one, or I'd have more some sympathy); rather glum staff who show no motivation or drive or enthusiasm to say solutions are being worked on simply tell me each day that the Amazon machine that scans the packages out of the cupboard isn't working and they seem at a loss to tell me when it might be resolved, if ever.

Before you start, I've worked the shop floor myself for various concessions at the now departed Debenhams in my time, but even there, I was amazed during a brief spell in Oxford Street, how very particular they were about making sure the customer felt welcomed, informed and served. There was no sign of this at Asda and not at Amazon either.

I  also remember when the Basys computer system at the BBC collapsed with all the scripts locked in it, a minute before the drivetime program ; But we dusted off typewriters and got out pens to write scripts Infront of the presenter as the news program progressed.

But there was no sign of such ingenuity 4 days on from either Asda or Amazon. Just let those customers continue to roll in to be disappointed it seems on both sides.

What became even more intriguing as I explored further is just how antiquated Amazon's on-line customer interface still is. Firstly it's still as incredibly muddled as I remember it being10 years ago. The 'AI' chat bot that I resorted to yesterday evening spent ages taking me in the wrong direction and never once assumed the issue might actually be with Amazon and not the supplier or the courier.

Eventually I have to force the issue with the bot and I get through to a live chat with Mohammed who within the space of only a minute or so said I firstly had to send them some government ID before progressing any further. This seemed a bit drastic when I'm enquiring about the status of their handheld terminal at Asda and the chance of picking up my goods anytime soon by showing a barcode and my payment card.

During the online chat process, I appear to have received three messages from Amazon requesting the government  ID which I explained to Mohammed was not proportionate to the issue or rather I termed it as  verging on an infringement of my civil rights.

I don't intend handing over government identity documents to a big corporate simply because they've failed to deliver something that I ordered with a debit card. I've overseen a couple of accounts with Amazon (one for a corporate) for a decade or so. I'm hardly new to Amazon nor a national security risk when I pick up groceries from my local Asda.

In their defence they'll no doubt say it's to do with combatting fraud or such like and that the documents will be processed by a third party. That's not the point. I just want to know if or when I can pick up the goods as originally hoped, not a major reassessment of who I am. 

Mohammed has clearly gone as far as he could so I asked to speak with his manager.

Hans was the next online and his solution was geared towards me leaving the product there and then waiting for a refund when it eventually gets returned from the cupboard ...and then...wait for it...that line that is so annoying for us all to hear when nothing has actually been resolved in the customer's favour....' was there anything else' he 'could help with?'

I suggested that perhaps the product, when finally released from that cupboard next to  the cigarettes, get returned to Amazon when Amazon and Asda are ready and that perhaps he could, in the meantime, simply send a replacement to another pick-up point nearby. 

It was a definite  'no-can-do' - for what is plainly an obvious and not too difficult solution for a man with an Amazon keyboard at his finger tips. 

Then suddenly there was a tremendous race,  it felt,  to close the on-line chat at the very moment I was checking whether Hans was serious about his lack of a solution and mentioning (half-heartedly at the time)  that the last thing I'd want to resort to for this type of issue is to have to write something as a journalist.

But within seconds it seems Hans had lost interest or the system had imploded, and the chat was abruptly ended and fizzled into thin air with no trace left behind whatsoever other than three demands for national government ID-style documents flooding my inbox.

I have my own ways of keeping records,  but when I checked my account as a customer, there's no clear system in place for  logging these chat conversations with Amazon in a way that you see as standard practice with more diligent companies elsewhere. And that is the worry from a consumer perspective, and far more important than receiving that glassware to be honest.

I'm not quite sure what game Amazon is playing but they'll be caught out big-time-soon if they don't pull their socks up.

My impression over the last 10 years by informally speaking to their staff and customers is that they've been coasting like a heavy oil tanker, barging through to where they want.  But I can already sense that the consumer is waking-up and will suddenly be looking elsewhere and demanding better service. The competition and innovators are already circling. Attention is naturally falling towards companies with friendlier, more responsive systems in place, set by trailblazers such as Octopus Energy . In the world of retail, you can see that Temu is trying its best to squeeze in.

I've kept a lid on  Amazon despite  their terrible systems leading to a poor gentleman single-handedly trying to deliver a fridge freezer to me  up a flight of stairs, only to drop it. At that moment I thought we'd returned to Victorian working conditions.  I felt terrible for him and angry for the managers of Amazon and the supplier who jointly messed up  the delivery requirements.

But at the back of my mind, while writing this, I still remember and worry about the excellent journalism undertaken by Richard Pallot and his colleagues at ITV News five years ago which revealed Amazon destroying millions of  items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses every year.

My rage is peanuts compared to that travesty and I hope there's no sign of this continuing.

I wasn't 'raising my voice' or being rude or even asking for compensation. I just want my glassware after all the back n' forth and lack of information.

An aspiring local school kid from one of the up-and-coming Tottenham schools could work out the solution that Amazon and Asda cannot. The reality is likely that neither Hans or Mohammed have been properly equipped by their managers on how to deal with simple situations like this.  Probably the same at Asda too.

Come on you two; it's not rocket science.


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Further media information: Jason Tanner 07941 433598 or jason@jasontanner.uk 
www.jasontanner.uk

There's always an invitation for a Right of  Reply for any individuals or organisations  mentioned in commentary

Jason Tanner is a UK News, Consumer and Royal Commentator, and Founder-Director of the defend uk campaign for fair free speech. He's overseen national and international media stories for three major charities, and led talented communications teams at the National Trust and CSV (Volunteering Matters). He built systems for customer relations management at Question One Ltd. He's also worked on the shopfloor for concessions with Debenhams in Guildford and Oxford Street and served the public at Springfield Cafe in Hackney.