If you, like me, are a fan of Tesco and food retailing in general, then you’ll find this article interesting.
Favourite fact: Tesco Expresses are made in a factory in Scotland that turns out one local shop a week (I guessed this when they installed a Tesco Express near where I used to live over the course of approximately a fortnight…)
Strangely though the Notting Hill Gate branch is taking over four months to fit out.
You have veryu odd views. Tesco Express have made life hell for local residents with litter from cash machines, thrice daily deliveries, lorries blocking small roads, stocking expensive products, Ripping consumers off.
You also have your facts wrong. Tesco Express prefabricated stores are made in York, not in Scotland. They are cheap, tacky and downright ugly.
It is a tragedy that due to the Big 4 small shopkeepers are daily going out of business. It is a tragedy that entrepreneurs can’t go into business because of the anti-competitive behaviour of tesco Express and Sainsbury local i.e. When a tescoi express recently opened in the Clerkenwellarea in London, they got their staff to walk into other peoples shops with banners luring customers away.
Who the hell in their right mind does that? well tossco of course.,
Every small local convenience store I’ve ever been to sucked. Tesco Express and (to some extent) Sainsbury’s Local don’t. QED, as far as I’m concerned.
And last time I checked, Aberdeenshire was in Scotland; ho hum.
Yeah, this is a problem I have. Tesco and the other supermarkets have some very problematic business practices: the way they treat surpliers is awful, and they can use their financial muscle to put other retails out of business.
On the other hand, as John says, most "bigger than corner shop" type convenience stores are utterly crap. The small ones, in my experience of Leeds and Oxford, are pretty good, but they tend to be tiny: somewhere to get wine, the odd onion, coffee etc. from. Once you get up to a larger size, they really start to suck (think about the horror that is the Co-op).
It’s a bit like Starbucks, Nero etc. They, again, don’t treat their workers very well, and open more shops than the market can support, deliberately to close down the competition. But I do rather like the fact that I can now get a decent cup of coffee in most towns, railway stations etc. Beats what many British cafes seem to think is a reasonable approximation to coffee…