According to a worldwide study by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the accountants and business advisers, Britain’s biggest grocer has been overtaken by Metro, of Germany, best known in Britain as the owner of Makro, the cash-and-carry store.

The report, containing this information, also confirms that, although the world’s biggest retailers have all increased their sales in the past year, two thirds suffered a hit to profits, sacrificing margins to ensure that customers kept spending.

The news comes a day before Tesco is to update the City on trading in the crucial Christmas period. It is tipped to report like-for-like sales growth of about 3 per cent for its UK business for the six weeks to January 9. Some analysts are pressing for it to explain how an extra £100 million of vouchers for its Clubcard loyalty scheme, which were sent to members before Christmas, affected sales.  Many Store Management teams would be able to answer this question pointing to the savings (averaging 17k per store) made on recruitment of temps – which left customers complaining about poor service and Managers and staff working ridiculous hours UNPAID or for time back (which never happens)

Terry & David really are losing their grip on this Chain

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Obviously, with Tesco failing to track the price changes, the stores have had to set-up their own trackers – the concern is that no-where near the expected quantity of labels had been sent,  many departments have completed some price verification routines today on affected areas,  we have recieved faxes of paperwork showing PV routines showing price discrepancies of more than 67% on one mod alone! – i.e over half of  all price labels on one area alone is incorrect!!,  Compliance managers are concerned that Tesco’s Head Office have managed to pass the problem to stores and that all the flak will be directed at the PI departments rather than the H/O staff responsible for this farce!!

“Traders are required to display clearly their prices inclusive of VAT. For a period up to 14 days, they are permitted under the Price Marking Order 2004 (SI 2004/102) to let consumers know, by way of a general notice, that an adjustment in price, to take account of the VAT change, will be made at the till.”

The Order was amended in December to give 28 days for price changes.”

THIS DOES NOT GIVE TESCO’s THE RIGHT TO OVERCHARGE DUE TO POOR PRICE INTEGRITY HEAD OFFICE POLICIES.

We look forward to recieving more details from you all in the next week!!

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Most interestly is the continued refusal to put the work onto the PID workload screen – this allows H/O and the Store Manager to ascertain if and when the task has been completed. . . . and as previously refferred to , this screen produces the Due Diligence legal paperwork, this means that there will be absolutely no papertrail for this entire activity!

The usual series of messages have been coming down via the SM’s Email system and the Compliance managers “Workplan”,  perhaps the biggest message that the SM’s should send back is the adage “Proper Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance” – Increasinging centralisation (stores cannot even order their own stock any more!) and the obvious out-of-touch teams within the ivory towers at Cheshunt, truly show that Tesco is an arrogant, task focussed retailer, struggling to maintain its performance.  We can only hope that the press now begins to report properly on some of the dubious tactics employed by TESCO…………

Some Price Examples:

“Tesco claimed yesterday to be freezing the price of Fairy non-biological at £4.50 as part of a “£12 million VAT freeze” on thousands of products. However the data shows that the non-biological washing powder was selling for £4 in October!”

“Tesco (this month) increased 500 prices in bedding, cooking equipment, crockery and other items that are subject to VAT by similar amounts.”

“Tesco  increased the price of 1,577 popular items – some 6.3 per cent of its range – in December.”

“Britain’s biggest supermarket Tesco has said it will increase VAT on fuel,”

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Many Managers, under siege from their staff have been approaching the Tesco ‘clones’ (AKA Store Managers and Personel Managers) asking why workers at Tesco are not entitled to a Bank Holiday Monday, as Boxing Day fell on a Sunday…………………It would seem that the response (in keeping with Tescos usual attitude to staff) is that Bank holidays are only for the Banking Sector, adding that it has been agreed with the USDAW union…………………….Well thats ok then!!!

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