Tesco, I hate you — and you need to know why

22 March 2008

Ross Clark says the decline and fall of retail empires begins when customer sentiment suddenly turns negative

For the vociferous band of Tesco-haters, waiting for the supermarket giant to slip up on one of its own homogenised banana skins has been a long and frustrating business. OK, you can clutch on to the failure of Tesco to achieve the 4 per cent year-on-year increase in sales during the Christmas period which analysts had predicted (it only managed 3.1 per cent). You can point out that its shares have plunged by 20 per cent since December — but which retailer’s shares haven’t? You can crow that a remarkable number of its executives over the past year have been scattering to jobs in rival businesses (one of them, dammit, to Sainsbury).

But it is all pretty desperate stuff. Tesco still takes £1 in every £8 spent in shops by British consumers. Moreover, in ten years it has successfully built up a network of 1,376 stores outside the UK, which last year generated £564 million worth of profit.

It can’t even seem to bruise itself by stumbling headlong into the US market — a notorious graveyard for overconfident British retailers, as Sainsbury, Dixons and Marks & Spencer can attest. Tesco’s Fresh & Easy convenience stores in California, 55 of which have been opened since November, haven’t yet come a cropper as many pundits gleefully predicted. In spite of one broker’s suggestion that the stores are not performing as hoped, Tesco has been bullish enough to press ahead with a second, vast West Coast distribution centre.

It doesn’t even seem as if Tesco is going to get much of a rap round the knuckles from the Competition Commission, whose two-year investigation into the supermarket sector is due to conclude in May. Speculation that Tesco would be made to sell many of the town-centre convenience stores it has acquired over the past decade appears to be wide of the mark: the Commission’s provisional findings, published last October, ruled that the large supermarkets’ foray into convenience stores is ‘not having an adverse effect on competition’.

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peter z

March 19th, 2008 9:19pm Report this comment

In your pseudo anti-Walmart, eco-fascist,leftist tirade you forgot to say why exactly you don't like Tesco.

M Carroll

March 23rd, 2008 11:25am Report this comment

Just wait til you get the bill from Waitrose? youll be back!!!

C Powell

March 23rd, 2008 8:04pm Report this comment

Forget Waitrose: "quality food, stupidly priced" should be its motto. Go to Morrisons: good value and no pretensions.

Max Kaye

March 23rd, 2008 8:25pm Report this comment

Why are you celebrating your irrationalism?

DJT

March 24th, 2008 9:43am Report this comment

My local tescos are frequently have shelves that are half empty and generally have huge queues snaking back into the aisles while tills remain unmanned (and 17 year olds in ill-fitting tesco uniforms stand around and chat loudly about their friday night exploits). There is often a mysterious lack of baskets. Worst of all they are dirty. There is a layer a grime under the produce that shows that the chiller cabinets haven't been washed in months. In short the whole experience is like shopping at Sainsbury's in the mid 1990s (except for the dirt, which to S's credit they didn't have so much of). Yes, Sainsbury's in the 1990s when it was the biggest, most popular supermarket...and then people got tired of the unstocked shelves, arbitary removal of products, store rearrangements etc etc and deserted en masses (mostly to Tescos)... Sometimes history repeats itself and if Tescos doesn't wake up and get the basics right they will follow S's (now recovering I believe). The good news is that even with its apparently monolithic status, it seems that consumer choice will still either force it to raise its game or allow others to steal its market share.

David Kay

March 24th, 2008 4:04pm Report this comment

Ross - you neglect to realise that all you are doing is expressing choice. Don't worry about Tesco ( or abuse them) because they will sort themselves out - or not. That's capitalism - and it works ( unless you are a banker!) Now let's read something interesting from you

Fivish

March 25th, 2008 1:01pm Report this comment

Tesco is a capitalist success story that the Lefties cant bear to recognise!

louisa michenstin

October 15th, 2008 5:20pm Report this comment

me + my friends absolutley HATE tesco's! we think all tesco's should be banned. they are disturbing and ruining the lovely little neighbourhoods we once knew. please do something about this!!! >:(

lisabeth rosemen

October 15th, 2008 5:21pm Report this comment

i am sitting in customer services at school and everybody sitting in this room hate tescos! do something now!!!:@:@:@

lisabeth rosemen

October 15th, 2008 5:22pm Report this comment

i am sitting in customer services at school and everybody sitting in this room hate tescos! do something now!!!:@:@:@

Mr Reasonable

November 7th, 2008 7:11pm Report this comment

The problem with Tesco is they just don't know when to stop. In New Barnet they have a Tesco express already but theyhave just gone to planning enquiry on a second Express 600 metres away. In addition they are about to submit a planning application for a giant tesco superstore across the road. Three Tescos in 600 metres is just ridiculous but they don't seem to care about the local community amenities they are going to destroy including the post office NHS Dentist and 100 year old pub. They are too big and are abusing their power.

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