Tesco offers grocery click and collect for free
Tesco is to offer free click and collect for groceries and is cutting its online shopping charges and the price of products such as bacon and baked beans as it seeks to fight back against the competition and turn around its falling sales and market share.
By Sarah Vizard
Previously, Tesco charged between £2 and £3 for its collection service, which was available at 230 locations. It has been running a promotion where click and collect was free until 27 April, but now promises it will remain free when that offer ends.
Asda already offers free grocery click and collect at selected stores as long as customers spend more than £25 but charges £1.50 for pick up at locations such as tube stations. Sainsbury’s offers a free click and collect service but only on its general merchandise, not food. Chief executive Justin King has previously said he has no plans to offer click and collect for groceries. Neither Morrisons or Co-op offer the service.
Alongside the cut to click and collect prices, Tesco is also offering one-hour home delivery slots for £1 at popular times such as Thursday evenings, a £2.50 reduction in price. The supermarket claims the online delivery changes could save customers up to £130 a year, while click and collect shoppers that previously picked weekend slots could save £111 a year.
In its latest round of price cuts, Tesco will also drop the price of more than 30 products including bacon, baked beans and selected breads. David Wood, Tesco’s UK marketing director, says “a family of four who like a cooked breakfast once a week will save around £96 a year”.
He adds: “I’m absolutely delighted we can do this for our customers. We never stop thinking about how to make their lives better and easier and these new lower prices on every day product will really help families on a budget. Together with £1 home delivery or free click and collect for food shopping, our customers are going to make real savings.”
This is the latest round of price cuts by Tesco after it promised to invest £200m in price and reduced the cost of items such as eggs, milk and chicken by an average of 24 per cent earlier this year. Speaking on a press call last week, Tesco chief executive Philip Clarke said the £200m investment was “just the start” as it looks to mitigate the rise of the discounters Aldi and Lidl.
For the year ended 22 February, Tesco sales at stores open for more than a year fell by 1.3 per cent, while underlying pre-tax profits declined for the second year in a row.
