Rete

There were no Tesco stores in the NYC area when I lived there and of course, none down here in the south either. But, yes, I am what would be considered a daily or every other day shopper. I like my meat freshly bought. The same for vegetables. When I worked and now in retirement, I will go to the market on sale day for a larger order of canned goods, paper products, and the like. In NY I would go to the Korean owned green grocer after work to pick up something for dinner, i.e. chicken parts, a steak, pork chop, or to the Italian Deli for fresh made Italian dishes such as eggplant parm, lasagna, pork chop in vinegar peppers.

civilservant

I can't think of anything worse than shopping daily!!!

I am a once a week (Friday afternoon) person. Maybe a couple of small items from Dollar General over the weekend, but only one grocery shop a week.

robtuck

I could be wrong, but the daily shopper comments probably refer to the type of "Tesco's" they went with. From what I remember, generally abroad they went with a cross between the Tesco Metro and Tesco Express, much smaller than a Kroger or even a Publix in my location and certainly not in the Walmart sphere. As they were a bit bigger than the Express brand, they would never be big enough for a full weekly shop - you'd have to get some items elsewhere if you ever shopped that way. The Express model has been a runaway success for them in the UK, but they have struggled with their larger stores until the past year or so as they've been squeezed out by Lidl & Aldi at the budget end, which is also why Asda and Sainsbury's were/are seeking a relationship - neither of whom managed the same inroads Tesco did into the world of basket shopping with Express.

Certainly the UK has changed a bit recently, with the bigger stores being less desirable - Aldi & Lidl have made huge inroads with smaller scale supermarkets, but more of them. Even when you look at Walmart's attempts of getting in on the act through Asda they've only got a small cluster of Walmart branded and sized buildings.

And to bring this back to boring basics - the daily vs weekly debate probably does has some weight - because you buy bread nearly every day in the UK and the same with milk! I'm still using milk we purchased about a week ago here!!

Hiro11

I never went to Fresh and Easy but:
- smaller stores
- focus on ready made
- mostly pre-packaged produce
... sounds a bit like Trader Joes.

Pulaski

Right! There was nothing wrong with the concept, it was a mix of bad economy, too little capital/ patience, wrong time (too soon), and some poor locations, and but mostly bad economy and inadequate capital.

MidAtlantic

It's still strange that Tesco, with all their experience, knowledge, expertise, finance made such a mistake. According to the Grudian it cost around $2bn.

The sale will cost Tesco £150m, including the loan, payoffs for about 400 permanent staff and store closures, taking the total cost of its failed US adventure to nearly £2bn.

scrubbedexpat091

Same could be said about Target and their failed expansion into Canada, and that is a company that even had good brand recognition in Canada and they still failed.

robtuck

Tesco, during that period and just after, made some horrific financial mistakes, some not so much mistakes as meant as well. Their legacy in the UK wasn't exactly ruined but they managed to shoot themselves in the foot. Likely the arrogance of being so dominant. They are only just turning the corner I think, in the past couple of years. It's all relative of course.

Hotscot

I enjoy shopping for foodstuffs, I like to see what's new. Trader Joe's is good for that.

However generally, rant alert, I wish they'd get rid of checkout people...

I don't need 'welcomed' to your store.
They are slooow.
I don't want to chat.
What's it got to do with you how I am today?
No, I don't want to donate.
Even if I didn't find everything, what are you going to do about it if you don't sell it!
No I don't want to do a survey and win $50.
I can bag my own stuff, go man a checkout kid, and be useful.
And then there's the shoppers in front who seem quite surprised that a payment method is required.
Then they bring out a check book...
Why...the older I get does everyone seem so slow?
(Probably because I've only a limited quality time left.)

Fack off...

SpoogleDrummer

That's why I order online and do curb side pick up, I just pull up in my truck and we chuck the shit in and get out of there. Either that or I go to Sams Club and just scan everything on my phone, pay on my phone and bugger off home.

Pulaski

+ 1, 'cept there is no nearby Trader Joe's.

My goal is usually to try to avoid having to talk to anyone while grocery shopping, except at the deli counter and the butcher/ fish counter, but all the staff in Kroger seem to be so irrepressibly happy!

Despite Kroger, Walmart, and Food Lion all having self checkout, and often having increased the number of self-scan kiosks over the past year, there is still often a queue for self scan and little or no queuing for the manned checkouts. I hope the stores get the message and provide more self scan kiosks …. and hopefully some way of dealing with more then three or four bags of groceries, which can be tricky at the self scan kiosks.

Hotscot

They've started that at Sam's?
I always thought they were a cut price Costco but Costco isn't doing that, at least where I am...so I could eliminate the need for the checkout person?

MidAtlantic

That's the one that bugs me the most.

Giantaxe

There were two Fresh&Easy stores in San Francisco and I shopped at both quite frequently. One was in a "good" part of the city, one in a "marginal" area. I really liked them, but suspected from the beginning that it would fail. In addition to the factors mentioned, they had these horrific self-checkout lanes (no cashiers at all) that for some reason never worked properly. Plus I witnessed a relatively violent robbery at the latter store which didn't exactly make me feel comfortable about shopping there. I do feel they bailed too early, though.

Hotscot

The unstaffed, (probably a manager and security guard though.) stores are inevitable. 40 cameras watching every individual that walks in, picks up stuff, puts it back, decides to buy it.
Cheap sensors, cameras, intelligent algorithms, a touch of 'AI'. Observing every move. 10 million calculations/observations a second
Charge your card/phone automatically.

That's the experience I want. In my opinion the checkout person does not enhance the shopping experience. I find them to be an unwelcome bottleneck. A negative.

Although I heard PA has banned those type of unstaffed stores already? Luddites.