Excellent Marketing Initiatives by Tesco

Introduction

Brands are conceived and kick out in a few days because as opposed to serving their clients, their emphasis is on offering to them. Numerous brands enter the market worldwide. Among them, there are hundreds of brands in the market today that have been running for decades, and their success can be attributed to their adaptability, customer-centric nature, and ability to expand in other nations and domains.

Tesco as a brand is the perfect example of the above mentioned positive qualities. Tesco has been in the market for around 100 years now. It is time that we look into the brand and its working philosophy.

In this article, we will dive deep into the Birth and Growth Trajectory of the Tesco brand. Tesco has been in the market for years, and as a brand, it is an excellent example of a customer-centric brand approach.

Image 1 − Logo of the British multinational retail company Tesco.

The Birth of the Brand Tesco

Tesco is the leading supermarket in the United Kingdom and is now expanding into other countries. Tesco was founded in 1919 by Jack Kohen. Jack began his Tesco journey when he started selling the surplus stock of groceries from a stall in London’s East End. As a brand, Tesco has always given particular focus to its customers and their needs. Tesco now sells products ranging from groceries, home appliances, beauty care, skin care, home décor, electronic appliances, furniture, AV equipment, and others. Tesco also offers services like petrol stations, pharmacies, and opticians.

Rather than restricting itself to a specific industry or item range, Tesco wanted to become the one-stop brand for every one of the necessities of its clients. Today, Tesco is present in India, Hungary, the United States, China, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Poland, Malaysia, Japan, and other nations. In addition, Tesco changed its name as it expanded internationally; for instance, when Tesco first opened a store in the United States, the company changed its name to Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market so that customers could more easily identify with the company's mission

Tesco, as a brand, is determined to be ahead of its competition with the help of its customers, their feedback, and their purchase data.

The Growth Trajectory of the Tesco Brand

Tesco as a brand today has achieved excellence, and all of it can be attributed to its operational efficiency and customer-centric working nature.

Image 2 − A close-up of the Tesco logo and slogan on a promotional leaflet, on 13th June 2016.

Let us see some of the marketing initiatives by Tesco that are worth noting.

Customer-centric Sales Promotional Activities

Based on researched data, Tesco was able to determine that the bottom 25% of customers contributed only 2% of the company's revenue, while the top 5% of customers contributed more than 20%. The company's top 100 customers were worth more to it than its bottom 4,000. Hence, Tesco decided that it would not be using a generalized sales and promotional approach. Tesco started storing the frequency of purchases, total bill amount, items purchased, and all these purchase-related and socioeconomic data of the customers. Now, this stored data was used by Tesco to create promotional coupons and discount plans for customers.

In 1995, Tesco came up with the Club Card system to store the data. Now that this card was swiped at every customer purchase, the customer would get loyalty points and special rebates. This initiative was started by Tesco because they wanted their customers to feel like valuable parts of the Tesco brand. Along with this, the high-value shoppers at Tesco would receive calls from the shop managers, valet parking services when they came to the Tesco shopping centers, and other privileges to make them feel special.

Customer-friendly Store Layouts and Online Tesco Stores

Tesco, as a brand, instead of keeping the product and brand name in mind while designing the stores, used a customer-centric approach. To elaborate further, Tesco designed the express shopping centers based on the customer's needs. The express centers were less than 600 square feet and were only used to sell groceries and food items. The second layout by Tesco was Home Plus, which was spread over an area of 50000 square feet and was used by the Tesco brand to sell only non-food items. When Tesco came online, it opened Tesco.com and Tesco Direct.

These initiatives sold more than 12,500 non-products on their website and guaranteed next-day delivery for customers through store pickup. Drive-through services were also offered by Tesco for customer convenience. Tesco, as a brand, understands that customers will be happy when their convenience is kept in mind by the brand and not when they are forced to browse through entire online and offline Tesco stores.

Applications to Make Sales Through Tesco Easy

Tesco understood that with the use of smartphones and the internet, they would be able to make the customer’s shopping journey comfortable and savvy. Tesco 2009 launched 3 applications for its customers.

First, one allowed the customers to scan the barcodes of their Clubcard smart cards so that the need to carry the Club card whenever they are shopping at Tesco reduces.

Second one was Store Finder which helped the customers in finding the nearest Tesco outlet in their area, and the third one was the wine application which allowed the customer to take the photograph of wine that they liked in the store and then read about its mix and ingredients in the comfort of their house when they order online.

In 2010, Tesco came up with more innovative ways through which customers could scan codes on the Tesco website and then buy things ranging from telephones to toys from the comfort of their homes.

Customer checkout and Tesco

Tesco has always believed in operational efficiency. Waiting in line is the worst nightmare for every shopper. Hence, whenever Tesco employees see that there is more than one shopper at the Tesco billing counter, another Tesco billion counter is immediately opened, and along with this, there are many self-service billing counters in all Tesco outlets for its customers.

Conclusion

Tesco, as a business, wanted to be available to anyone and anywhere. Tesco has been aiming to be the one-stop destination for its customer’s needs. The brand has been doing wonders, and the customer-centric approach that Tesco has taken has helped him serve customers in the best possible manner.

Tesco recognizes and rewards its loyal and high-volume customers and is always on the lookout to make shopping with Tesco the most convenient task. Today, Tesco is present in more than 12 countries, has more than 2318 outlets, and has more than 326,000 employees to serve its customers. Tesco has once again proven that the customer is no longer the king of the market but God.