In-store technology provides Tesco with opportunity for poaching

Tesco is trialling an interactive touchscreen at its Cheshunt Extra store in the run up to Christmas and into the New Year. The screen is 80 inches across, giving shoppers interactive access to more than 11,000 products.

With Christmas approaching, shoppers will be able to use the screen to browse the full range of toys that are available on tesco.com, and filter by age, sex and price. Customers can then place an order by printing a ticket for Click and Collect.

Interestingly, and in a further drive to build familiarity with using mobiles for shopping, people will be able to use their smartphones to scan on screen QR codes to order goods.

Enabling customers to use their smartphones for purchases provides Tesco with an innovative way for it to facilitate the shopping process, and led me to look at the shares of supermarkets’ customers who would be willing to try out the new service.

Looking at the chart below, Tesco can expect a high incidence of use were it to roll out the service more widely across its stores. 11.5% of Tesco customers use their smartphones in-store to facilitate shopping.

Of smartphone owners who shop at the supermarket, this rises to 21.3%. If Sainsbury’s and ASDA were to do the same, they could expect even higher rates. But if Tesco were to move quickly, then it would provide an opportunity for Tesco to draw in customers from its rivals.

As a footnote, it’s when we look at people living in Cheshunt and the surrounding area that we can see why the supermarket chose this branch to trial this:

• A full third of people who live in Cheshunt and the surrounding area who shop at Tesco like to use their smartphone in-store to research products.
• Of smartphone owners who shop at Tesco, this rises to an incredible 56%.
  Source: Touchpoints 2012