Tesco : A Largest Food Retailer

Tesco is a British multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer, it has stores in 14 countries across Asia, Europe and North America and is the grocery market leader in UK, where it has a market share of around 30%.

Tesco’s is a private company which is owned by directors and shareholders who fund the business and the sole purpose is to make money. Tesco’s main purpose is to sell and make profit on products they sell such as food and online service. Tesco’s will provide excellent customer service and make sure all customers come back which

ASDA is a public limited company and the second largest supermarket in the UK. ASDA founded in 1949 under the name of Associated Dairies and Farm Group. Asda offers various types of goods and service such as clothing, grocery, electronics, home furnishings and baby product (ASDA, 2014).

Product offerings by these contenders are similar as Tesco’s to a huge degree. This procedure helps Tesco to ensure its commercial center by expanding competition. A large portion of the contenders of the Tesco have an equivalent or a bigger market share in the store business. By industry investigators, Tesco PLC has a twenty nine per cent of shares the grocery store industry.

Tesco is the biggest private sector employers and market leader in the UK supermarket sector.

There are a wide range of different political factors that will influence Tesco and the way it will run as a business. For example, the UK government, or the body accountable for the nation the grocery store is arranged in, the European Union and other organisations for example, the World Trade Organisation. The World Trade Organisation should ensure the nourishment being imported is safe and that the trading is fair.

Sainsbury has developed different supply chain channels to manage the complexity faced due to different store formats such as country town, Sainsbury local. Sainsbury believes in continues improvement and aims to achieve it in many different ways. Sainsbury recognise the importance of its people who plays a major role in delivering excellent business. The logistic staffs of Sainsbury tend to work in flexible and well maintained environment. One of the collaboration of Sainsbury is to focus on the demands of the consumers and maintain a healthy relationship with the suppliers and other partners. Above all Sainsbury is committed in reducing the impact of its operation towards the environment (J. Sainsbury Plc-b, 2002).

Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandising retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. Tesco is the fourth-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues, after Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Metro. The second-largest measured by profits after Wal-Mart. It has stores in 14 countries across Asia, Europe and North America and is the grocery market leader in the UK (where it has a market share of around 30%), Malaysia and Thailand.

Tesco is the leading food retailer in Britain, they have also focused on building non-food sales which are available in store and online. Tesco is one of the world’s largest retailers with approximately 4,331 stores in 14 countries which include Asia, Europe and the United States. (Tesco, 2011). See appendix 1 for a map of the countries Tesco operate in.

|92.7% |19,758,429 |93.1% |6.2 | |Tesco |6,185,522 |30.8% |6,453,370 |30.4% |4.3 | |ASDA |3,421,940 |17.1% |3,411,938 |17.5% |8.5 | |Sainsbury's |3,239,500 |16.1% |3,422,662 |16.1% |5.7 | |Morrisons |2,327,583 |11.6% |2,495,623 |11.8% |7.2 | |Somerfield |715,232 |3.6% |699,959 |3.3% |-2.1 | |Waitrose |795,406 |4.0% |805,006 |3.8 % |1.2 | |Iceland |343,713 |1.7%

The UK supermarket industry resembles an oligopolistic industry, with several characteristics. Oligopolistic markets tend to be characterised by high concentration ratios, barriers to entry and…Since the turn of the century, the industry has been scrutinised by both the Office of Fair Trading and has been referred to the Competition Commission on two occasions. (Seely, 2012)

Tesco Public Limited Company is one of the largest companies known worldwide, they are the multinational grocery and general stores that has many branches around the Europe as well as Asia. They have been labeled as the grocery market leader in the UK and the third biggest retailer due to its profit measures. Tesco was originally founded in the year 1919. The founder of Tesco was a person by the name Sir John Edward Cohen or also known as Jack Cohen, he was a market stall holder in Hackney, London and soon started a wholesale business.

Tesco is the largest supermarket retail chain in the United Kingdom with Sainsbury being their closest rival. It is also the third largest retail chain in the world. In the beginning Tesco started off by selling basic groceries before diversifying into many different markets. In 2007 Tesco was operating in the following fields:

There are 92,796 grocery stores in the UK and the market value increase by 19.5% in the last 5 years and according to IGD forecast the UK grocery market should reach £203bn by 2019. But what we can see in the figure 1 that from 2009 to 2014 annual grow in the grocery market start decreasing from 4.9% in 2009 to 2.8% in 2014. One of the reason for this is difficult economic conditions which had an effect for consumer spending. Consumers choose to spend less money on food by buying less food or by looking for cheaper places. Retail market is diversified into three main sectors: Hypermarket and superstores which accounts for 42.3% of retail market, convenience stores 21.4% and small supermarkets 20.3% (Figure 3). So about 84% of sales are done in these three sectors. The biggest 4 retail chains in UK are: Tesco which takes 28.7% market share, Asda has 17.3%, Sainsbury’s 16.6% and Morrison’s 11%. (Figure 2) So, if we will sum up 4 biggest retail market chains we will have about ¾ of market share. Finally, a strong characteristic of this sector is competition with price wars and a

supermarkets like Tesco offering the biggest discounts in the UK and Sainsbury 's offering of substitute products too (Mintel, 2010). This shows the responsiveness and flexibility towards consumer needs in the supermarket industry.