Tesco Plc

Tesco is the supermarket leader in the UK for last few years. Tesco was founded by Jack Cohen in 1919. He started the business by selling surplus groceries from a stall in the
East of London. The profit that he made in the first day was £1 and sales of £4. The first brand product sold by Jack Cohen was Tesco Tea, this was before the company was know as Tesco. 1929 The first Tesco store was opened in BURNTOAK, EDGWARE, NORTH LONDON. Afterwards in 1932 Tesco became a private limited company. Later on Tesco Stores Ltd. joined the share market in 1947 with a floating share price of 25p. In 1956 Tesco first launched self services supermarket in Maldon. Tesco took over a chain of 212 stores in 1960 and another 144 stores in 1965. Tesco reached annual sale of GBP 1 billion in 1979 and the sales acceded GBP 2 billion by 1982. In 1983 Tesco Stores (Holding) Ltd became Tesco PLC. 1998 Tesco enters in to Thailand and Taiwan market. 1999 Tesco Plc diversifies into other business ventures like online banking; online bookstore and Tesco also published supermarket price comparisons on the internet. By 2006 they opened Tesco Express, Tesco Extra, Tesco Metro and Tesco Direct. Tesco PLC declared annual profit of GBP 2 billion.

Strong brand image:
The company has a strong brand image, and is associated with good quality, trustworthy goods that represent excellent value. Tesco's innovative ways of improving the customer shopping experience, as well as its efforts to branch out into finance and insurance have also capitalized on this with a growth of total sales of 27.5% in the last three years. (Tesco, 2010)
Good loyalty scheme:
Tesco Clubcard is a world-leading loyalty card scheme, with around 15 million active cardholders. Information provided by Clubcard enables us to better understand our customers and say thank you for shopping with us. There are over eight million unique coupon variations with each Clubcard mailing, making sure that everyone receives the kind of offer that is appropriate for them. In 2010, 18% more UK households redeeming Clubcard vouchers than a year ago (Tesco, 2010)
Increasing market share:
Tesco holds a 22.2% share of the UK grocery market for the year 2009 while in 2008 the market share was 21.8%. This shows an increase of 0.4%. Its multi-format capability means that it will continue to grow share in food, while increasing space contribution from hypermarkets will allow it to drive a higher share in non-food. Data for 2009 shows that non-food market share was 8.8% up by 0.3% from 2008.
Online sales:
Tesco.com, the online sales website of Tesco Plc, is the world's biggest online supermarket. Their dotcom grocery business and now their online non-food offer, Tesco Direct, have already added more convenient options for customers to shop – particularly those with very busy lives or limited access to transport. The growing power of the internet means increasingly that people look to this channel to buy everyday services and goods. Furthermore it uses the websites to