Tesco buys consumer favour with smartphone app

Ruth Mortimer is Marketing Week’s associate editor and a prolific blogger. She won a PPA Award for her forthright and insightful columns on marketing.

Supermarket Tesco has launched a special app for shoppers with phones using the Android platform. Designed to make shopping at its Tesco Extra stores easier, it helps people locate grocery items and better navigate the shop.

Sound like technology gone crazy? Well, it might not be as mad as you think. Marks & Spencer’s boss Marc Bolland recently admitted that his brand’s outlets needed better signage after no customers were up to the challenge of finding 10 items in store within an hour.

And a recent report from the US suggests that young mothers are the main users of shopping-focused mobile applications, including downloading coupons, making lists or locating nearby stores. So presumably, they would all be very keen on Tesco’s new initiative. It just goes to show that the truth can be stranger than science fiction.