Tesco Cuts Prices, Offers Vouchers if Goods Are Cheaper at Asda
Tesco Plc, the U.K.’s largest supermarket chain, said it’s cutting the price of 1,000 every- day items and shoppers who find that goods they bought were cheaper at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Asda stores will get vouchers equal to twice the difference.
Tesco is launching a 200 million-pound ($324 million) campaign today with reductions on products such as PG Tips teabags, Persil washing detergent, bread, fruit and vegetables, it said in an e-mailed statement. Customers will be able to check the price of their purchases compared with Asda on its website, the Cheshunt, England-based grocer said.
Tesco’s invigorated price promotions follows Asda, which last month promised to be 10 percent cheaper than rivals or it would refund the difference. An earlier campaign by Asda promising to be cheaper than competitors was labelled misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority and ordered withdrawn after complaints by Tesco and William Morrison Supermarkets Plc.
“This is our way of doing what we can to keep household spending manageable," Richard Brasher, who starts this week as Tesco’s U.K. chief executive officer, said in the statement. "Tesco will lower prices on more than 1,000 everyday products across our stores - from rice and tea to bleach and washing powder.”
Grocers are working to lure consumers facing higher fuel prices, inflation at the fastest pace in more than two years and the government’s planned 330,000 job cuts. U.K. consumer confidence in February stayed close to the lowest since March 2009 as Britons became more pessimistic about the sustainability of the economic recovery, a report by GfK NOP Ltd. showed on Feb. 25.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Shannon in London at sshannon4@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Celeste Perri at cperri@bloomberg.net.
Rate this Page