Are Tesco on the way down?

[rustymotor]

^^^ I hate supermarkets with a passion, heavy handed greedy and for the most part doing us all in with preservatives to achieve 3 months shelf life but not on spuds apparently..

[SD1too]

This is an interesting discussion. I’d say that Tesco’s decline began the day that Terry Leahy departed. I heartily recommend his book: ‘Management in Ten Words’ (which are truth, loyalty, courage, values, act, balance, simple, lean, compete, trust).

The book is easy to read, does not contain accounting jargon or meaningless rubbish like ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘step change’ and is in paperback for just a few quid (publisher Random House).

Simon

[oldcarguy]

Tesco has the only major brand supermarket in Driffield, Heron foods and Kwik Save both disappeared of the High St, Kwik Save because Tesco bought their store which was at the back of their car park on the grounds that they were going to build a bigger store. That never happened and it is now a B&M store. At the other end of the main street is the old cattle market which closed about 20 years ago and I'll put money on it that Tesco bought the site to stop another supermarket from moving in.
The only threat to them is a Lidl store.

[HarryM1BYT]

The prices are rising in our local Tesco (big store) and stock levels reduced, so I'm using them less and less. Just next door to them a Lidl is being built, set to open this month, can't wait - there food tends to be better quality and cheaper.

Our main street has a few shops, among them a Sainburys Local, absolutely the most expensive place to shop, apart from the basics, but there milk is fresh so that is all I get from them.

A local fruit and veg shop recently closed, which sold great spuds at a good price, so I had him deliver a full bag at a time. I have now tracked down a local farm shop, which sourced from the same source and deliver, so I now order from them. They also do dry dog feed, so I have them deliver those too. Both are even cheaper than my earlier source, so win win.

[bendrick]

Originally Posted by munroman

About 10 years ago, Tesco announced plans to build what would have been the largest superstore in Scotland in the small town I was living in.

The reason, ASDA had built a large store in the adjacent town, and Tesco wanted a bigger one.

The other shops in the town would have been decimated, and the Council were so useless and approving of everything that Tesco said that suspicion was aroused as to how, let's say, unbiased, certain officials were.

A group of us got together, and managed to fundraise and produce an independent report showing how flawed Tescos case was, this helped to persuade enough Councillors to vote to reject Tescos plans.

Tesco then chose to appeal, which led to a hugely expensive enquiry, however, by this time, people's backs were up, and funds poured in to pay for expert witnesses on our side.
I think Tesco thought they would bulldoze thongs through, and were genuinely shocked by people objecting.

They were not allowed to build the store, one advantage we had was that we had Tesco employees feeding back to us how things were in the store, sales dropped 30 per cent, and never recovered.
The original store got a lick of paint, and the local shops got together and realised they had to do something, the shopping street has been done up, they hold things like car shows, and business is up.

Use local stores as much possible, one statistic we unearthed, if you spend £1 in a chain store, 8p stays locally, the rest going to shareholders, etc.
£1 in a local shop, and over £1 stays locally, as they use local suppliers, accountants, cleaners, etc, it keeps towns alive.

Tesco lost it when the new boss was the son of a Tesco boss, they believed their own way was the only way.

I for one, apart from the effect on their unfortunate staff, would have no problem seeing the demise of these monsters, the recent snow events show that the supply chain that now exists cannot feed this country robustly, we need to downsize and localise, for everyone's benefit.

I've no idea of the specifics in the case that you have quoted but I'm afraid that planing applications can only be rejected on the basis of valid planning law..... not....

Because we don't want one

It'll spoil the view

It'll decimate other local traders

We don't like Tesco


I was very surprised when on a planning committee to find that it was not a valid objection to reject a planning application if for example there were already five newsagents in a strip of 6 shops and someone had submitted plans to convert the last one to a newsagents as well. The natural observation that all the shops would be commercialy unviable was described as tough luck and not a valid reason for refusal.


You can mount all the protests that you like but unless there is a valid objection under planning laws such as environmental impact reasons or the land is zoned for recreational use or designated coastal belt for example then even if the councillors on the planning committee turn down a controversial application then it is very likely that their decision will be overturned on appeal by the developers.

The other thing is that if the councillors overturn a recommendation by their own planning department that there is no valid reason to refuse an application then the committe is invited to submit to the planning department the valid planning reason that they rejected the application on the basis that the planning department will call councillor or councillors to testify in the planning appeal on the reasons why they have turned the original application down thus putting the onus on the planning committee members to be able to back up the legal planning reasons that they refused the application rather than just that they didn't like it or residents were campaigning against it.

[Dallas]

I'm glad I found this thread, I thought I was the only one that had noticed the change in Tesco's business operation, there has been a slow decline in Tesco sales for sometime now.

The Tesco Direct side of things changed for the worst some years ago along with Tesco F&F clothing, they no longer seem to offer the low cost affordable products. Instead customers are now faced with expensive third part sellers selling on the Tesco website and ridiculous price rises similar to that of well known luxury department stores.

Their format has changed where everything seems to have been stripped back (streamlined) which has caused a massive knock-on effect in product quality. Tesco have taken 'Low Cost Sourcing' to a whole new level, their bullying tact-ticks will be their demise. They are now all about greed and profit, doing deals with low end market suppliers and not having interest in what they are selling.

[charlie 22]

Originally Posted by coolguy

Usually do my weekly shop at Tesco on a Thursday morning, and accept that stocks on shelves may be a bit low, ready for replenishment before the weekend. However, due to circumstances, I did my weekly shop after lunch today, and the shelves were even more bare. This coupled with shorter "use by" dates suggests a tightening of their corporate belts, or perhaps my Branch is just badly managed.

Any others found similar experiences?

I can confirm that Tesco is on the way down as I work for them

[charlie 22]

Originally Posted by SD1too

This is an interesting discussion. I’d say that Tesco’s decline began the day that Terry Leahy departed. I heartily recommend his book: ‘Management in Ten Words’ (which are truth, loyalty, courage, values, act, balance, simple, lean, compete, trust).

The book is easy to read, does not contain accounting jargon or meaningless rubbish like ‘blue sky thinking’ and ‘step change’ and is in paperback for just a few quid (publisher Random House).

Simon

I strongly disagree, I experienced his running of the company first hand and when he left the company with a golden hand shake the aftermarth was a company that nearly went bankrupt.

[victorgte]

A director of the company I used to work for said “We will only do business with Tesco if certain people there either leave or die”.
2 friends have gone bust due to severe price reductions on the goods they supplied to Tesco. They tied them up with long term supply agreements and then continued to pin them down on price and were slow to pay. Sole supplier deals can be risky and they exploited that fully.
I have no time for Tesco or their stores. The market is rife with stories of their harsh treatment of suppliers and they have been found out with dodgy accounting practices. Lidl for all I can get and then I cross the road to Tesco for a few bits and pieces I can’t get from Lidl. Ironically we have a Sainsbury’s and Aldi opposite each other too so guess what I do there!

[munroman]

Replying to Bendrick:

We provided legally valid reasons, e.g. Tesco had not done a proper assessment of the traffic issues, as luck had it we had a retired traffic engineer, and lecturer on our team.

He found gaping holes in Tescos plans, which the Council planners had taken at face value.
As he had written some still used simulation software, he ran various scenarios through, the town sits at the intersection of 4 roads, all of them led to gridlock, sometimes as far out as 4 miles away.

Even better, Tescos proposed car park design would have gridlocked at less than 50 percent capacity.

The store also did not meet design standards, overshadowed a listed building, protected mature trees would be removed, and was on a flood plain, again not a word of criticism from the Council planners.

Tesco were saved from.building a white elephant, with the building of a nearby Waitrose their sales have declined.

(A little aside, Tesco claimed to contribute to local community groups. As we had many sprightly switched on retired people available, some of them contacted ALL of the community groups within a 5 mile radius.
The only contribution we found was Tesco donating 1, yes 1, packet of sausages to a group who clean up the local river.
They gave us a list of what they had pulled out of the river over the years, Tesco bread trays and pallet wrapping were the 2 main items, this on a salmon and trout river.)

After the Planning Reporter upheld the refusal, Tesco took 60m2 off the store and resubmitted, I think in the belief they would outmuscle the community resources.
I believe that the local store management pleaded with Head Office to withdraw, as sales dropped again as people became sickened by Tescos attitude.
Then came the various financial scandals and the plans were quietly dropped)