Tesco is great.

I get all my food shopping done, and fill the car up in one trip.

I also have my house and car insured with them which was far cheaper than everyone else.

I pay for my shopping and petrol with a Tesco credit card so I get more club card points for everything I buy, giving me money off Tesco purchases.

I dont see the problem with any of this.

my local corner shop sells things cheaper than the tescos/asda etc i dont know how thay do it but thay do

It's because your local corner shop might be a secondary food retailer?

Tesco (or any other major brand) are contracted, for example, to buy 100,000 litres of Coca Cola per month. If they haven't sold enough then they will sell the surplus at cost (or less) to these guys as they have another 100,000 litres knocking on the door. In turn, they then will sell it on to cash and carrys and so on cheaper than they would be able to buy it direct.

There's a considerable chunk of change in this secondary market, it would make POW blush

simply because most of us can't spell sainsberries

Well everyone can spell Asdurr so why don't they get more mention.

Funny thing is, you're both basically right.

Klyde is simply saying that he thinks Tesco's offer, on the face of it, is very attractive in terms of convenience and price. And given that one in every eight pounds or so that is spent in the UK is spent in Tesco, he's certainly not the only one. Tesco is so successful precisely because it provides what many people want.

Plurker however correctly points out that this convenience and cost saving does come at a (different kind of) price - the loss of our local shops and communities and the homogenisation of our towns and cities.

it's not all bad though - it is this takeover of the supermarkets that has itself led to the rapid growth of farm shops, farmer's markets and organic vegetable box deliveries from local growers.

Times change and things move on. Old businesses models die and new businesses take form. Your 3rd generation local fishmonger might have been put out of business but he now has the opportunity to start an Internet fish delivery company.

Despite almost getting a deal struck I haven't managed to snare my prized VLH yet, so shaking up the offer a little to tempt a few more of you to get in touch

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Lots more to potentially sweeten the deal if you're tempted.

Charlie

I think its easy to blame people like Tesco's for the death of the High Streets but really its the switch to people buying online that has really been the change.
If you think about it even in this scene we have seem Galleries close their permanent spaces down, and are concentrating more to online sales.
I think probably most local shops might have a chance at survival if they keep up with the times and invest in the online side of the business as well.

an example of mentality of some can be found here...

www.facebook.com/#!/SheernessTimesGuardian/posts/192929110721075

This is refering to a prominant pub building in the high street.

We have a guy that used to be in the financial services, and got made redundant when the Good ole business like Lehmans ruined the world.

He has set up a great business buying fruit and veg direct off the local farmers, all nice and fresh, and he delivers a mixed box to all our little houses, got a customer base of 600 odd, and at £16 a box everyones happy

I am afraid that I dont agree with you.
Some shops wil recently have been suffering from online sales, but the cahnge in the landscape of our towns and cities has been going on for yyears and years.
Bill Bryson deals with it very well in his book The Life and Tiomes of the Thunderbolt Kid, pointing out that in the 50's every town had its own diner, its own soda bar, its own dept store, and they were all unique, so different towns had their own identity. Now, you could plonk someone on the high street of any town and you would see all the same shops, all the same branding, even down to the same chairs in the coffee houses.
It's a crying shame.
Dave Gorman also references it in America Unchained, where he tried (and failed) to cross America, avoiding chain petrol stations and chain hotles. I suspect he would have struggled in the uK too.
Interesting debate.

When Boris continues with the plan (which he'll make out is his) to build a fucking great airport in the middle of the Thames then the Isle of Sheppy will be reborn.

They wouldn't have bothered building that bloody great bridge otherwise.

Can't ignore the march of the internet..............surely once Tesco get their arse in gear the 'superstores' will become no more than distribution centres. With fuel costs where they are and rising, there will be a critical commercial point where everyone down my road (and yours, resistance is futile) has their shopping delivered at the same time (ish) on the same day.

I worked in a venue that hosted an exhibition by Tesco's on their proposed development on the edge of a struggling town centre. It was in the early 90's, during the last recession.

The concerns of the residents was that Tesco's would further contribute to the decline of their town. To combat this and to show how they understood these concerns, the company mounted a PR campaign to demonstrate how much they cared by allowing the residents the opportunity to vote on what they wanted built on the land surplus to the supermarkets requirements. The options given were housing,a bowling alley, a cinema, or a combination of these. Over the course of the week the residents came and viewed what was on offer, and resigned to defeat voted on what they thought was best for their town.

The box in which the votes were cast was never taken away when the exhibition was finished. I phoned the PR company to tell them it was left behind, but they did nothing. I anonymously phoned a local councillor, who in public objected to the plans, to tell him about Tesco's attitude and contempt for the residents he was supposed to serve. He did nothing. Suffice to say the council got a new community building once planning permission was granted.

Seventeen years on the town is still suffering, and its decline has been continual since Tesco's set up shop.

The world moves on, but this isn't progress. It's greed and selfishness.

In time of course they, as global data controller, will be using our internet shopping lists to predict what we want, when we want it.

I seem to recall houses being built somewhere ready to accept internet food shopping into refrigerated spaces.

Also recall a business meeting in May at a cafe at the end of the Leysdown Road, Isle of Sheppy once in May - sun out, no wind, great food.....no Tesco Express, keep looking over your shoulder, they're coming.

On the plus side Sir Terry Leahy's buggered off, which means that 'growth' must be skewed from now....