Tesco Gears Up For Largest Ever Halloween Campaign
The UK’s largest supermarket chain Tesco is set to launch its largest ever Halloween campaign, as it gears up for what the retailer says could become one of Britain’s major seasonal events.
Tesco says it expects to shift as much as £55 million worth of Halloween related items this year. The retail giant says as many as 2 million toffee apples, 1.4 million pumpkins and 1.5 million fancy dress costumes will be sold this year along with truck loads of Halloween themed chocolates and sweets.
According to Carolyn Bradley, Tesco’s UK marketing, Halloween has overtaken Valentines Day to become one of the year’s main seasonal events, with sales of Halloween-related goods almost trebling since 2005 and now on par with combined Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day sales .
“We’re observing the growing trend that particularly during the recession our customers are looking to create their own entertainment at home,” she said.
“Halloween is an excuse to for friends and families to get together and celebrate so we’re making it more accessible and affordable than the specialist stores.”
“Halloween has stopped being scary and started being fun and that’s what’s underpinning growth.”
Tesco Launches iPhone App
UK Supermarket giant Tesco has launched an iPhone application which will let owners of the Apple device to carry out their grocery shopping whilst on the move. The application syncs with Tesco’s online shopping portal, which enables customers who are registered with the online store to use their iPhone to create a list of their shopping, and book deliveries for their order.
Tesco.com CEO Laura Wade-Gery said: “We’re always looking for ways to make life easier for customers. The iPhone app creates a fantastic new way to shop with Tesco.com whenever you want, whether you’re adding last-minute essentials or starting a new order.”
Tesco To Bid For Carrefour South East Asian Stores
The UK’s largest retailer Tesco has entered the bidding war for the South East Asian stores of French Supermarket giant Carrefour.
Tesco joins a list of nine other bidders in the auctioning of Carrefour’s 61 stores in South East Asia, which span Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.
The sale is expected to generate at least £650 million for the French retail giant.
Tesco already has a significant presence in the South East Asian markets, and is keen on expanding and adding scale to its operation in the region, which the retail says presents a “significant long-term growth opportunity”.
Tesco currently operates 663 retail outlets in Thailand and a further 32 in Malaysia and is seeking to expand its Malaysian business by 27 per cent in the next financial year.
Many analysts expect that because of Tesco’s aggressive expansion plans, it will likely usurp Carrefour’s position as the world’s second largest retailer by 2012. Perennial number one Wal-Mart is likely to maintain its position as the largest retailer on the planet.
Despite putting its south-east Asian hypermarkets up for sale, Carrefour said it will remain highly active in China, where it has a large presence, and will continue to operate stores in Indonesia and Taiwan.
Tesco Opens UK’s First Self Service Store
British retail giant Tesco has opened the UK’s first completely self service store in Northampton.
The convenience store Tesco Express, has no checkouts that are staffed, and instead uses a set of five self service scanning tills which are overseen by a single staff member.
Tesco says the aim of the “assisted service store” was to speed up trips made to the store and increase efficiency. The retailer said however, that there were no plans to implement the checkout in its larger supermarkets.
A Tesco spokesman said: “Customers like the fact that there are five checkouts available. Before, you could have four manned checkouts but only one person working the till. It’s a lot quicker but some people have never used them before so a member of staff is there to assist.”
The head of the British Retail Consortium, Richard Dodd, says he believes the move could trigger the beginning of a technological revolution, which would be the end of manned checkouts at supermarkets.
Critics say that unmanned checkouts signal the end of “basic human interaction” between shoppers and check-out staff, which could mean job losses in the thousands.
But critics of the move warned that it signalled the end of “basic human interaction” between shoppers and check-out staff, and could ultimately result in thousands of job losses.
A spokesman for rival Asda was quoted by supermarket .co.uk as saying that “hell would probably freeze over” before it opened a store with no customer interaction on the checkouts.
Sales Growth At British Supermarkets Falls
Sales growth at British supermarket chains has slowed to its lowest pace in nearly three years, largely as a result of a sharp drop in food price inflation according to the results of a new survey.
The study conducted by market research firm Kantar Worldpanel suggests that aggregate sales across all British supermarkets grew by 3.6 per cent year on year during the quarter ending March 21st, the slowest growth rate since August 2007.
Kantar Worldpanel says the reason for the slowdown was due to lower food price inflation which fell to 1.8 per cent compared with 9.1 per cent in the same time period during the previous year.
” While lower inflation has had a dampening effect on retailer growth, it also “brings benefits to consumers. The latest figures suggest that shoppers are taking advantage of slower grocery price increases by trading up to more expensive lines such as Tesco Finest,” Kantar Worldpanel ‘s Fraser McKevitt said.
According to the results of the survey, Morrison’s was the strongest performer amongst the Big Four grocery retailers, with sales increasing by 7.8 per cent year on year during the quarter ending March 21st.
Next was Sainsbury’s with sales rising by 4.6 per cent, followed by Tesco (4.1 per cent) and Asda (2.7 per cent).
First Strawberries Of Season On Sale At UK Supermarkets
Signalling the beginning of spring, and the official end to winter, British strawberries went on sale at supermarkets across the country last week.
Strawberries went on sale at 25 Morrisons retail outlets in the South of England, with the UK’s largest retailer Tesco confirming they are now available in 15 stores.
The other major retailers including Asda, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose are all expected to begin stocking the first British grown strawberry crop of 2010 in the next few days.
Tesco strawberry buyer Ben Reed said: “Not only are we enjoying the first warm weather of the year this week but we’ve also now got the first British strawberries which means that summer is well and truly on the way.”
“The arrival of the first home grown strawberries is extremely significant – not only does it herald the start of British Summer Time but it is also the start of the UK growing season.”
“Many shoppers think of the first home grown strawberries as being bitter and hard but the ones we’ve got our hands on are delicious.”
Nicki Baggott, soft fruit buyer for Waitrose, added: “The first British strawberry signifies the end of winter and heralds the arrival of spring. This explains why it’s the ultimate feel good fruit – and one which retailers are clamouring to get on shelves as early as they can.”
Tesco To Launch Couture Clothing Range
Terry Green, chief executive of the UK’s largest retailer’s clothing unit Tesco Clothing, says the company is planning on launching a couture range of clothing on the retailer’s online store.
The range, which will be known as the F&F Couture online range of clothing, is the first move ever by a supermarket chain into high fashion retail, and will be launched with 16 items to begin with, that will sell for between £40 and £140.
Mr Green lauded the move as a new era for supermarket fashion, claiming the range offers a combination of high quality and affordable clothing.
Last week Mr. Green revealed that he will be stepping down as chief executive of Tesco clothing, after more than five years at the helm. His tenure as CEO was extremely successful with sales at the unit increasing from £700 million to more than £1 billion, and market share having risen from 7 per cent to 9 per cent during the time period.
Mr. Green’s previous position was chief executive of department store Debenhams.
Competition between supermarkets for clothing sales has become increasingly competitive of late, with the most recent set of blows being traded by Asda and Marks And Spencer over returns policies.
Small Business Worried By Number Of Supermarkets
New data released by the newspaper the Daily Mail suggests that more than two fifths of towns in Britain have at least five supermarket outlets within a ten minute drive of one another.
The report suggests that 42 per cent of all British towns were in such a position, with some chains owning more than one outlet within a ten minute drive of one other. The finding has alarmed small business.
David Amess, Conservative MP and and chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group is calling for a government inquiry into the supermarket industry.
Mr. Amess would like the government to investigate claims that supermarket retail chains are choking high street business. Mr. Amess claims that the retailers, through the employment of high priced lawyers, are able to overturn decisions taken by local authority.
The rise of the supermarket in the UK contrasts significantly with the number of independent retailers, which has declined considerably from 500,000 in 145, to just 35,500 today.
The ‘big four’ supermarkets – Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Tesco have captured nearly 75 per cent of the £80 billion grocery sector.
Add to the mix the fact that the UK entered recession in 2008, and the story for independent retailers has not been good, with more than 2000 going out of business last year.
The diversification of supermarkets into multiple consumer segments has made it even harder for small businesses to be successful.
Sales Growth At British Supermarkets Slows
A new report issued by market research firm Kantar Worldpanel suggests that growth in sales at leading British supermarket chains slowed down to their lowest level in nearly two years.
The pace of growth in the market slowed to 5 per cent during the quarter ending February 21st, compared with 5.2 per cent in the preceding quarter.
A spokesperson for the research firm says the slow down in growth could be as a result of price cuts and price wars undertaken by many retailers. Some analysts suggests however that customer loyalty may be declining as a result of the economic downturn.
Asda was the leading beneficiary in February, after having seen declines in January. The retailer engaged in an aggressive marketing campaign which produced sales growth of 3.3 per cent during February compared with 2,1 per cent in January.
Despite the increase, Asda’s market share has fallen to 17 per cent from 17.2 per cent as perennial rival Tesco gained at its expense, increasing its market share by 0.3 per cent to 30.4 per cent of the total market after aggressively cutting its prices.
Some analysts have expressed concern at the performance of Sainsbury’s, whom many believe lags the traditional market leaders Tesco and Asda.
Tesco Starts Selling World’s Sweetest Tomato
Supermarket chain Tesco is stocking a new variety of tomato, which it says tastes as sweet as a peach.
The new variety, known as Sugardrop was developed by the retail giant to cater to sweet toothed customers and indeed anyone who finds that taste of ordinary tomatoes to sharp for their liking, in particular children.
Tesco describes the new variety as the sweetest tomato ever, The Spanish grown Sugardrop is in fact a hybrid of two different varieties of tomatoes, containing approximately three times the amount of natural sugar as regular tomatoes as well as half the daily recommended dose of vitamin C.
A Tesco spokesperson said that the process of creating the new variety required two years of cross breeding amongst 3,000 varieties.
“A few years ago we sat down with our suppliers and asked them to find us a high quality tomato that would appeal to gourmets with a sweet tooth,” she said.
“It was the beginning of major research that involved our growers contacting all the major seed houses in the world in order to find varieties that they could cross pollinate to find a tomato with higher than normal sugar levels.”
“The result is the Sugardrop which is the sweetest tomato there has ever been and now this week UK shoppers will be the first to try it.”
