Tag: Tesco

Tesco sales slide in first quarter

tescoBritain’s biggest retailer has reported a one percent slide in UK sales for its fiscal first quarter, ending 25 May, but things are even worse in Europe with a 5.5 percent slump.

Tesco’s results are worse than expected, despite the fact that the chain spent £1 billion to boost UK sales.

Tesco Broadband intros £2/month deal

tescoTesco Broadband is offering potential customers the chance to sign up for £2 a month, if they’re quick, which the company boasts is “cheaper than a box of eggs”.

Not quite. Customers who sign up will also have to pay Tesco line rental at £14.90 a month for 12 months, putting the bill up to £16.90 per month for a yearly contract. A rolling 30 day contract is also available, but this will cost £40 to set up. For the 12 month contract, there will be early termination charges per month remaining. The deal is pretty good but certainly costs more than a dozen eggs, even if you are buying them from Waitrose or M&S.

As with many unlimited deals, Tesco is able to impose a fair use limit on broadband usage.

The supermarket offshoot boasts that the contract saves compared to BT, TalkTalk and PlusNet equivalents.

Evening and weekend calls are Included in the deal.

When asked about the purposes of this promotion, a Tesco spokesperson said “Tesco always looks at where it can help families by cutting the costs of its services”.

The offer is valid until the end of June.

Tesco profits flag

tescoTesco is facing the same fate as many other businesses, reporting the first annual profit loss in nearly 20 years.

The supermarket giant said pre-tax profits were down 51 percent to £1.96 billion, while post-tax profits including the cost of its £1.2 billion US exit were £120 million, marking a decrease of 95.7 percent.

The company confirmed that it would be backing out of the US after its investment in 190 Fresh and Easy stores failed to make it a profit.

In Blighty the company has also announced a property write down of £804 million. This was as a result of a review by the company, which uncovered more than 100 sites, scooped up five years ago for potential stores, now lying dormant.

In a blog post, head honcho Philip Clarke said: “Much of this property was bought more than five years ago, some more than 10 years ago.

“That is before the 2008 financial crisis, before the iPhone, social media, tablet computers, before we knew how profoundly technology would change both how we and our customers live and shop.

“Technology has changed much that we all took for granted and it is still changing. The last five years have shown that change in retail can be disruptive and come in sharp steps, not a steady trend. We must anticipate change and act decisively so we looked hard at the land we own and conclude that although we have a strong and attractive network of stores, we will never develop some of this land, mostly the very large mixed-use developments.”

The past three months have also not been favourable to the company, with Tesco claiming its sales, not including petrol, only rose by 0.5 percent. This was a decrease from the growth the company faced in six weeks to 5 January when the company marked a 1.8 percent rise as a result of Christmas shopping.

Tesco chucks cash at digital services

tescoTesco is continuing in its quest to become the all singing all dancing supermarket giant.

The company has now said it will be launching a new UK digital music and book service, while, like many companies, is moving to improve its presence in China, launching its Clubcard into the country.

Head honcho Philip Clarke said that the supermarket would be throwing $750 million at the technology market  this year, a mark up three times more than in 2010, in a bid to go head to head with the likes of Amazon and Play.com.

He said the company would be embracing digital retailing, eventually offering apps to help customers shop easier as well as confirming that it would launch blinkboxmusic and blinkboxbooks over the coming months.

It’s taking the moves seriously – hiring one of Facebook’s most senior European executives, Gavin Sathianathan, to lead the operation.

Mark Bennett, a former EMI and Warner Music executive, has been tasked with heading up blinkboxmusic.

This is one of many paths the company has been taking in its quest to become supermarket king.

Earlier this month it was reportedly in talks to buy family food chain Giraffe as well as entering into the price match war with its rivals.

Tesco leaves horse and gobbles up Giraffe

GiraffeTesco is still seemingly trying to use every trick in the profit book to boost its customer base and raise its profits.

The supermarket giant, which earlier this week announced it had launched a price promise voucher scheme, is rumoured to be sticking its neck out and gobbling up eatery Giraffe for £50 million.

It is thought that the deal could see the kid’s eatery being opened up within the supermarket’s stores, letting  it target a different type of customer and attract more footfall into its stores and helping it combat the profit warning it announced last year.

The move is just one of many which the supermarket hopes will improve its figures. Over the past months its restructured its stores to make them seem less clinical, while its also tried to make more of a presence in the tech space.

Last month it announced it was introducing a  Netflix rival – a free TV streaming service called Clubcard TV.

The beta trial is only available to Tesco staff for the time being, but when it officially launches it will be available to card-carrying Clubcard members.

Tesco throws down price war gauntlet to the competition

tescoTesco is vying to get customers galloping back through its doors following the horse meat scandal.

The giant is also throwing down the gauntlet to its supermarket competitors, offering its customers automatic price comparison coupons.

From today the retailer will compare its prices on branded and own-label goods with those at Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. It said its customers would receive their coupons after every buy if its prices were found to be higher than its competitors. Online customers will receive their vouchers via email.

The scheme, which is similar to Sainsbury’s Brand Match scheme, will offer customers a maximum of £10 in coupons per visit.

The company will also be going head-to-head with Asda’s “Price Guarantee” that offers to refund customers the difference, via a voucher, if an online price-comparison website does not show that their shopping is at least 10 percent cheaper than it would be.

However Tesco has stipulated that customers must buy more than 10 different products to be eligible to receive money off in its scheme.

Chris Bush, Tesco’s new UK boss, said the company was working hard to build a better Tesco and the ‘price promise’ was an important part of that.

Google Play gift cards available at Tesco and Morrisons

googleplaycardsGoogle has officially introduced its Google Play gift cards in the UK and they are already on sale. That was quick, but still a bit too late for baby Jesus’ birthday. 

The cards are available at Tesco and Morrisons branches across Britain.

Although the cards should be available in three denominations of £10, £25 and £50, early reports indicate that some denominations are not available in all shops, but it is probably a minor glitch that will be worked out.

Obviously, the cards can be can be used to buy content from Google’s Play store, ranging from Android games to books and films. Sadly though, the gift cards cannot be used to buy Nexus hardware, digital subscriptions or accessories.

The cards can be redeemed by simply entering the code on the back of the card in the Google Play app, during the purchase or by entering the redemption code through your browser.

Tesco depot staff face job losses

tescoTesco’s “You shop, we drop” strapline, seems to have taken on a more sinister meaning after the company announced that it would be axing at least 150 jobs.

The company has said the cuts come as it aims to transfers 2,000 depot jobs in a  restructuring effort after it announced that it would be closing three centres in its distribution sector.

The depots facing the closure are Harlow, which has 800 workers, Barlborough near Chester, which employs 400 people, and Weybridge in Surrey with 650 staff.

The company’s site in Magor in Monmouthshire, which employs 800 people, has also admitted that it will be cutting 150 staff.

The supermarket has said that it will aim to transfer some jobs to its new shiny depots in Berkshire and London where it said 2,000 would be created.

It also claimed that it would aim to give staff in the closing down depots new jobs within the company.

However,  local workers have spoken out, telling the Harlow Star that many won’t be willing to uproot their families to move to the new locations.

This isn’t the first time this year that the company’s distribution sites have been in the news. Earlier this month ex Tesco warehouse staff and forklift drivers spoke out, claiming that they were forced to wear armbands so Tesco could monitor their work efficiency and the amount of time they took for breaks.

At the time Tesco denied that the bands were used for staff monitoring, claiming that they were only used by drivers to scan the stock they collected from supermarket distribution points and send it out for delivery. It said this meant staff didn’t have to worry about carrying around pads and paper.

However, workers claimed that they had been used to spy on them with some saying they had been called in front of management if they took unscheduled toilet breaks.

Over in the company’s marketing department, however, the story is completely different – with reports that the supermarket is looking to fill 40 vacancies.

Jobs going include head of online marketing for F&F and marketing manager for Clubcard, as the company aims to drive its online and internal communications initiative.

Tesco takes on Netflix with free video streaming service

tesco-blinkboxTesco is apparently gearing up to introduce a new free TV streaming service called Clubcard TV. The beta trial is only available to Tesco staff for the time being, but when it officially launches it will be available to card-carrying Clubcard members and Tesco says it will be “free forever”.

There will be no charges, no contracts nor  subscription fees. Tesco says the service is basically “a thank you to our customers”. Clubcard TV is based on Blinkbox technology. Tesco bought 80 percent of Blinkbox in 2011, so the move is hardly surprising.

The service works in a similar way to Netflix, but unlike Neflix it is completely free and it doesn’t have nearly as much content. It will not offer the latest TV shows or movies. Although it is said to feature thousands of movies and TV shows, most of them are pretty old. At least there are some golden oldies, such as early Batman and Superman movies, along with some ancient British sitcoms.

While it might not be a proper Netflix competitor, at least it will be free and available to millions of Tesco shoppers.