Tag Archives: Tesco

Virtual Stores Prove a Hit

The virtual store wall in a South Korea Metro Station by Tesco/Homeplus was last year big hit. Now the concept has evolved, and World’s first virtual shopping store – using the walls of Seonreung subway station in downtown Seoul – displays over 500 product, ranging from food to tissue papers.

Customers can choose the delivery time and date – for orders placed before 1 p.m delivery can  be effected the same day – and delivery cost is the same as  more traditional online stores.

“A major perk of this concept is that consumers don’t have to be anywhere near the virtual store to place an order. So, if you want to order replacements of a bottle of water that you have in your hand, you don’t have to stop by the subway station’s store. You just have to scan the bottle’s barcode with the Homeplus app., and then the products are delivered later to home or office.”- Quoted Sitch News

We are sure consumers in Far East markets – like Korea and Japan – welcome this kind of technology and are at their ease with mobile barcode scanning and m-payments, but what about all the other markets? Would for istance consumers in France or Spain quickly adopt this kind of purchasing behaviour? What is your opinion about this?

Tesco and RSPB to protect rainforests around the world

UK retailer Tesco has formed a partnership with Europe’s largest wildlife conservation charity – the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) – that aims to protect rainforests around the world.

In addition to raising funds, the “Together For Trees” campaign includes a competition to identify a “Rainforest Reporter,” who will travel to one of the projects in the RSPB’s rainforest program and experience first-hand the efforts to slow deforestation.

Together For Trees aims to raise over £1million for the RSPB in its first year. Every time a Tesco customer brings in a re-usable shopping bag, he or she will be able to donate the vouchers or points Tesco awards through its green Clubcard membership. Additionally, customers have the option to donate cash, and Tesco will contribute £75,000 from the sale of its new Together For Trees reusable bags.

Funds raised by the partnership will support conservation work such as the replanting of native trees in areas damaged by illegal logging, providing equipment for researchers and conservationists, and helping local, forest-dependent people to improve their livelihoods in a sustainable way.

“Our customers will trust this scheme because it brings together the UK’s most popular retailer with the UK’s most popular conservation organization,” said David North, Tesco UK Corporate Affairs Director.

The money raised by Together For Trees will be spent on the RSPB’s rainforest projects across the world, including Harapan Rainforest in Indonesia, Gola Rainforest in West Africa and Centre Hills National Park in Montserrat, a UK Overseas Territory in the West Indies. Rainforests such as these are home to more than two thirds of the planet’s land-based creatures, three quarters of all endangered bird species and have more than one billion of the world’s poorest people depending on them to survive.

In the search for the Rainforest Reporter, Together for Trees has partnered with Amazon explorer and European Adventurer of the Year, Ed Stafford. (Stafford participated in a live web chat Thursday morning, hosted by The Guardian.) People can apply to be the Rainforest Reporter on the Together for Trees website.

Tesco has set a goal to become a zero carbon business by 2050. In 2011, the Carbon Disclosure Project named Tesco the top retailer in the world for its efforts in tackling climate change. However, last month, Tesco abandoned its industry leading effort to place carbon labels on all of its products

via Tesco Raises Funds for RSPB, Opens Competition for ‘Rainforest Reporter’ | Sustainable Brands.

Lack of co-operation may kill Retail Sustainability Projects

In 2007, Tesco’s CEO Sir Terry Leahy pledged to track and put carbon labels on all the chain’s products as part of a “green revolution,” but has backed off the plan

In February 2011, Leahy called on governments around the world to work more efficiently with private companies to ensure that low-carbon growth innovation is not unnecessarily hindered by bureaucratic red tape. Now it seems, the lack of cooperation among companies to help defray the costs of carbon labeling contributed to killing the program.

Tesco told the U.K. trade magazine The Grocer it planned to discontinue the program after and wind down the project after finding research for each product involved months of work. Currently 500 of Tesco’s products have carbon labels while more than 1,000 have been researched.

“We expected that other retailers would move quickly to do it as well, giving it critical mass, but that hasn’t happened,” Tesco’s climate change director, Helen Fleming told The Grocer. But other retailers failed to get involved or share information to help reduce the costs of the program, making it to costly to continue.

Tesco was named the best U.K. company for its efforts in tackling climate change by the FTSE 350 Carbon Disclosure Project in 2011 and was awarded top retailer globally for two years running. The retailer opened its fourth zero carbon footprint store in January.

The chain may be backing off the labeling program for now, but hasn’t given up its commitment to the concept. “There are an enormous amount of companies that research the carbon footprints of their products,” Fleming told The Grocer. “But how do you ramp that up to the top level? We now need to make the right long-term decision and we’re talking about what we do next.”

via Tesco Gives Up On Carbon Labeling – Green Retail Decisions.

Tesco to free up shelf space with augmented reality trial | VIDEO

Tesco is trialling augmented reality technology in its stores and online offering as it looks to sell more bulky products, including consumer electronics, without sacrificing shelf space and to reduce returns.

Consumers can use the in-store technology to generate a 3D image of a product and find out its specifications by holding a product key or Tesco Direct catalogue up to a webcam.

The webcam is connected to a computer terminal, which will display the product information on a screen and remove the necessity for displaying the physical products on shelves.

Software for the technology has been developed by British-based Kishino.

Customers can choose to buy the product in-store or order it to be delivered to their homes via Tesco Direct if it is not in stock.

The strategy behind the concept is to integrate augmented reality into the everyday shopping experience.

Augmented reality-compatible computer terminals are being trialled in the entertainment and electronics sections of Tesco stores.

There are currently seven stores that have the augmented reality terminals in entertainment sections and five that have them in the electronics section.

Their locations include Wembley, Milton Keynes and Boreham Wood.

Some 40 products are being trialled in the augmented reality initiative including televisions and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ Lego.

The augmented reality technology will allow customers to spin the virtual TV around to see the connector points on the back and get an idea of the size of the television.

Tesco is also trialling the use of wi-fi in some of its stores, which it claims has been a success and is expected to be rolled out further.

Tesco will also encourage consumers to use the technology on their home computers by holding up the Tesco Direct catalogue to their webcams, after installing an augmented reality plug-in.

The supermarket chain also hopes the use of augmented reality on customers’ home desktops will reduce the number of returns, as customers can get an idea of the size of the product before ordering online.

The software requires a two-way camera meaning, it is currently only compatible with desktop computers or mobile devices that have the two-way capabilities, which includes the iPad and latest iPhones.

via Tesco to free up shelf space with augmented reality trial – Marketing news – Marketing magazine.

Are virtual walls the future of retail?

The use of digital technology to enhance high-street shopping took a step forward last month when Ocado and Tesco unveiled initiatives aimed at creating a seamless retail experience.

Ocado opened a pop-up shop in London’s One New Change shopping centre in the Square Mile. It featured a printed window display, or ‘virtual wall’, showcasing some of the retailer’s most-bought items and their barcodes.

Consumers who had downloaded Ocado’s ‘On the Go’ app can visit the window display to order the items – by scanning the barcodes with their smartphone – and book a delivery time. The retailer says it will roll out more displays across the country if the trial is successful.

Jason Gissing, co-founder of Ocado, claims that the experiment is a bold move. “We hope this trial is a hit and, based on its success, we’ll be looking at options around continuing this ‘virtual window shopping’ approach in other locations UK-wide,” he says.

Consumers have already been exposed to this new way of shopping.

Tesco has been experimenting there with an interactive shopping wall for its Homeplus brand, by opening a virtual store in a busy underground railway station in South Korea’s capital, Seoul.

More than 500 products are on offer, and all are displayed in a shelf-like appearance, prompting shoppers to scan them with their smartphones.

A spokeswoman for Tesco says: “You place an order when you go to work in the morning and can have the items delivered when you come home at night. This will help increase our sales via smartphones, which will be the next big sales generator.”

Ocado in the UK, then, seems to be catching on to Far Eastern technologies ahead of its domestic retail rivals. But James Tagg, mobile services director for MPG’s Mobext, is unsure that the technology can be implemented successfully in cities such as London.

“I think it’s clear that, here in London, the main value of a similar campaign would be as an awareness-raising tool, rather than an improvement on our everyday shopping experience,” he says. “The lack of mobile reception on large parts of the Tube system would prevent most people from downloading the app in response to seeing the virtual shopping aisles, and placing an order would have to wait until you were above ground at the end of your journey.”

Tesco says it doesn’t plan to launch similar services in the UK, but with Ocado leading the charge, the ‘big four’ supermarkets of Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s could well be tempted to follow suit in the future.

Increasing smartphone adoption will help, along with plans to install mobile broadband on London’s Tube network. It could be a while, however, before interactive walls feature significantly in retailers’ growth plans. (Source: Andrew Mccormik/Wallblog.co.uk)

Social responsibility, food and Government: the responsibility deal

The responsibility deal signed by the UK governement, backed by 170 companies such as Tesco, Unilever, Sainsbury’s, Carlsberg and Mars and Diageo, is going to rise a lot of controversy for a long time.

A key pledge outlined in the deal is the development of a new sponsorship code on responsible drinking while McDonald’s, Pizza Hut and KFC have agreed to place calories on their menus from September this year.

Other pledges include:
– Reducing salt in food so people eat 1g less per day by the end of 2012
– Removal of artificial trans-fats by the end of the year
– Rolling out Change4Life branding to 1,000 convenience stores

Achieving clear unit labelling on more than 80% of alcohol by 2013 is also pledged but this was a commitment made last year by drinks brands under work initiated by the last government.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley said: ‘Public health is everyone’s responsibility and there is a role for all of us, working in partnership, to tackle these challenges.’ He claimed that regulation is ‘costly and is often only determined at an EU-wide level anyway’.

ISBA’s director of public affairs Ian Twinn also adds “It has also been inclusive – businesses have volunteered to reinforce public health through their product development and marketing and health pressure groups have pledged to contribute through their campaigning activities.

The responsibility deal seems a great step toward the introduction of a more socially responsible fast-food industry, but not all the companies do have the same advise. Cafe Rouge, Bella Italia and Strada are expected to follow Subway and PizzaExpress by not signing up to the government’s health initiative. Subway, which already provides calorie counts on in-store posters, said the scheme was unsuitable for its stores. It is conducting a trial intended to establish the most effective way of displaying the information.

Meanwhile, a PizzaExpress source argued that displaying calorie levels is not consumer-friendly and clutters its menus.

One factor that will no doubt deter businesses, particularly smaller inde-pendents, is the costs involved. London restaurant chain The Real Greek says that, on average, it costs about £100 to test and certify each dish.

Being one of the first to make a move has its risks, not least the fear of being criticized in the press for selling high-calorie-content food. On the other side, being part of a movement that gives consumers greater transparency can deliver positive press coverage.

Toby Southgate, managing director of branding agency The Brand Union, believes the risks are worth taking. ‘Those brands that adopt early could win out, provided they handle the move carefully,’ he says.

Southgate cites McDonald’s, which has made efforts to ‘re-educate’ its con-sumers about healthier eating, arguing that disclosing calories on its menu board could provide incentive to consumption. (Source: BrandRepublic)