More Tesco stores will add food to their “Click and Collect” service as the UK’s number one retailer continues its move to tap into what CEO Philip Clarke today (8 June) called “new retailing”.
Clarke said Tesco would expand the number of outlets that allowed shoppers to buy food online and pick it up in-store after a “successful trial” in select outlets.
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The announcement came as Clarke told the British Retail Consortium’s annual symposium in London that companies were now operating in an age of “new retailing”.
Clarke said the “digital revolution” had “turbo-charged” globalisation and was “transforming how consumers and companies behave”.
The Tesco chief pointed to the rise of social networks and smartphones and said consumers had “more power than ever before”.
“Three in ten UK adults now own a smartphone, and 5% a tablet. For them, there is more or less no distinction between life online and life offline,” Clarke said. “This is why successful retailers need to be multi-channel retailers. We cannot differentiate between online and in store. Our offer online has to be at least as good as, if not better than, that which we offer on the high street.”
Tesco’s plans to build a multi-channel business also include initiatives outside the UK. The retailer plans to launch an online grocery service in the Czech capital of Prague this year and in Warsaw, the Polish capital, next year, Clarke said.
He added: “We also have plans for operations in Shanghai, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Budapest and Bratislava.”
