Every Little Helps - But this is a whole Lot

Keeping with Supermarkets (Or Starting with Supermarkets if you are reading the posts top to bottom) Another article on the Daily Mail Website was well worth a read, it is a facts and figures article about Tesco, They list 50 facts about Tesco which is the UK’s most dominant retailer (and responsible for 1 in every 3 pounds spent in the UK.)

I will not post all 50 as after all if you want to see the full list (if you are a stat obsessed nerd like me) you really should go to the source but my favourite facts are these:

£3.75 The cost of an entire Tesco Value school uniform for three to 16-year-olds this year. That’s 50p for a polo shirt, £1.75 for a sweater and £1.50 for trousers or skirts.

So you can get two full School Uniforms (And an extra pair of trousers and two spare shirts) for £10, better than rummaging around in lost property for second hand uniforms

13 days was all it took for a team of builders to create an emergency Tesco store in flood-hit Workington, Cumbria, last December. The collapse of Northside Bridge made it impossible for many customers to reach the regular store on the other side of the river.

This is quite phenomenal, whilst most people are shocked by the emergency Tesco are already looking at how they can look after their customers (No I am not so blind to think it wasn’t about the profit) shopping needs. But it is this kind of responsiveness that has given Tesco the dominant market share that they enjoy today.

173 UK jobs are created every week by Tesco.

More important than ever as the UK exits recession, once a young person has left University with one of New Labours phoney degrees (Art Management etc..) at least they will still have a job to go to.

150,000 Wetsuits sold a year through Tesco, one of its bestsellers in the Sports and Leisure category.

I love this fact, When I was a kid there was a song that went “Lets all go to Tesco, Where ‘Insert Name here’ buys his best clothes” well now it is not just my best clothes but motorcycle leathers (A life saver when you lose a glove at 3am in December) and now Wet Suits as well.

32,991,000 The total square-footage of all Tesco stores in the UK . . . that’s bigger than the City of London.

Again another great fact, obviously this is slightly confusing as if you say City of London they think of the Metropolitan Area and obviously this is actually the City Corporation Area but still an impressive fact (Although still gets beaten by the fact that Disney World in Florida is the size of Manchester)

£92 million — the value of the computer equipment that was donated to schools and hospitals between 1992 and 2004, thanks to Tesco’s Computers For Schools voucher scheme.

Another example of Tesco leading the way and the other supermarkets playing catch up, Now there is Computers for Schools, Sports for Schools even gardening supplies for schools but the Tesco scheme (Now I believe just equipment for schools as they offer much more.) was the original and giving equipment away a full 18 years before David Cameron revealed his plans for the Big Society, of which this is a great example.

£529 million — the amount of money returned to customers in 2009 in the form of Clubcard vouchers. If they were all used on Airmiles, that’s enough for 424,000 round-the-world trips.

To Declare a slight interest here My first job when I moved to Crawley was for Tesco Clubcard and whilst the job wasn’t particularly well paid (£4.50 an hour if memory serves me correctly) it did give me a real appreciation for the Clubcard rewards programme, particularly the Clubcard Deals offering in which the vouchers are worth 4 times their face value, now since then others (Well just Nectar to be honest) have brought out their own schemes but for my money these have never matched the great offer that the Tesco Clubcard offers.

Well, like I say these are just my favourites, there are many facts on the page, including the fact that Terry Leahy receives 300 times the salary of one of his check out staff, but when you look at the changes he has brought about to take the Market Stall company to the Number 2 spot in world retail (Wal-Mart and Asda are number 1 in case you are wondering.) it is hard to say he hasn’t earned it!

Asda: Giving you more for less, (But This is Ridiculous)

Just read an article on the Daily Mail Website about a Padded Bra for 10 Year Olds that has been on sale at ASDA, An ASDA spokeswoman has stated that the Item a push up bra size 28AA should have been removed from sale 6months ago following the uproar that swept the country after Primark (The Clothing Arm of Associated British Foods) were found to be selling “Sexualised” clothing aimed at young girls. ASDA however apparently decided that instead of removing the items they should simply move the bras and lace underwear (rated for age 9+) to the lingerie aisle instead.

The ASDA spokeswoman also said in her statement 'We take our responsibilities as the largest children’s wear retailer extremely seriously. Every single one of our children’s wear products goes through an in-house panel of mums to assess its suitability.” I would suggest therefore that they carefully consider if they have the right people on their panel. Now whilst I accept that as my daughter is only 1 there is not much chance of her pestering me to try and buy something I do not agree with but as a parent I can not understand how these products come to be made, after all if the only people buying the clothes were people like me then a lack of sales would soon end the product line, I have therefore often wondered what kind of people are bad enough parents to think that it is a good idea to sell this kind of product, but I guess I now know – it is the ASDA parents panel.

Moral victory

Just had my first happy experience in an Asda store. Walking between the aisles when an old man complained. "Look at all these lot what don't speak our language."

To which I happily replied "who don't speak our language."

I doubt he understood my sarcasm, but it made me feel good.