As part of a £1bn round of business investment to improve flagging results, retail giant Tesco is reported to be spending £150m on improving its online shopping experience. It is likely that some of that considerable sum will be spent on the new Tesco Marketplace which launched quietly earlier in the month.
Tesco has plans to recruit more than 8000 new staff, revamp existing stores and continue international expansion. Recently, they also launched the Tesco Direct platform which offers enhanced functionality, improved user experience and also, crucially, features near twice as many products than previously. More than 75k in total.
All of Tesco’s British online business will transfer to the new platform soon and further improvements are expected. It seems likely that some of this money will be spent on the Tesco marketplace although exactly what Tesco has in mind here is a mystery.
A successful Tesco foray could by a gamechanger for ecommerce if they are bold. By using their unique market position, strong brand, customer data from Clubcard and national distrubtion network, they could take on eBay and Amazon and profit handsomely. We shall just have to wait and see.
2 Responses
I have to say I despise shopping at Tesco (for lots of reasons), so would never touch their online shops, no matter how good they polish it up…
The main improvement I’d like to see would be for them to re-brief their shoppers to NOT fob us off with all the out-of-date bread and stuff that there’s no way I would buy myself. Sure, I ring and ask for a refund, and throw the rock-hard bread at the seagulls (or use it in the rockery), but still that means I am without bread. Ponces.