Tesco is one of the worlds leading international retailers. Since the company first the trading name of Tesco, in the mid 1920s, the group has expanded into different formats, different markets and different sectors. The UKs leading retailer Tesco was floated on the stock exchange in 1947 and in 1995 took over rival Sainsburys position as the UK number one. The principal activity of the group is food retailing, with over 2,000 stores worldwide. Tesco has a long term strategy for growth, based on four key parts: growth in the Core UK business, to expand by growing internationally, to be as strong in non-food as in food and to follow customers into new retailing services. The company launched a home shopping service in 2000, allowing customers to order their shopping online. Tesco is now expanding its convenience stores and overseas into areas such as Taiwan, Malaysia, Poland, the US and Ireland.

Upper graph = 12 month share price with 6 month moving average
Lower graph = 12 month volume (red line = volume average).

My concerns - The out of town stores are fast losing value . Sainsbury took a £663 million hit on its property portfolio. Also very concerning
the groups pension deficit ballooned by £800 million since February to £4.2 billion.

Tesco are sitting on about £15.9bn of operating lease commitments. This is fine as long as the store stays profitable. The property hit for Tesco could be HUGE. Should be declared in the April Finals.

In my local store the staff do seem to be happy and have a renewed sense of purpose. I read into this, that they do believe in what Lewis is doing and trying to achieve. There is truly tons of happiness and buzz about the place.

In my local Morrisons the quality of goods seems to have gone downhill with the competitive approach to pricing. The staff have put into effect lots of changes and improvements and do seem to believe in their management, though.

I have found out that Sainsbury's start their Sale on Christmas Eve. Starting with their persistently poor attitude towards their Customer's toilets, I've never had a lot of respect for their site management and staff. I very often find they have under-ordered and run out of fresh produce too. Accordingly, many visits have been literally 'fresh fruitless'.

Aldi: What a tip! The store can't hold what the buyers are sending/bringing in. The floor staff just cannnot cope! I've seen fresh and frozen meat staying in cartons on the store floor instead of in the chiller and freezer cabinets for our whole visit to the store. Indeed, they just haven't room on the shelves, the floor is just piling up with full and empty boxes and the prduct wastage is going to be terrible and massively high! The staff are too overworked and too hassled to care! There are lots of bottles of expensive wines on the shelves (£10-£25 per bottle) that simply are just not selling. I reckon they have massively overbought. Things are going to get very interesting by way of discounts after Christmas. Advice: Keep your eye on the "Grabbit Quick!" thread on Martin Lewis' MSE Forums.

Lidl seem quite organised and do seem to have bought lots of stock into the stores too. There do seem to be are some high quality things to be had if you are lucky but they do seem to sell out of them too quickly for me to get my hands on them! I'm looking forward to what they have in their sales too.

Does anyone think like me, that online supermarket shopping for groceries is over-rated? It might be OK for toiletries and the lines of clothing and maybe even the odd telly but I do like to see what I'm getting and I don't want to trust it to some dolly bird store picker. Neither can I see how it can be profitable for the stores to offer it. It is probably OK for people who live in busy towns and cities, who might get stuck in tons of traffic, but not for the people who don't. Is online shopping, such as I've described, just a fashionable gimmick? Aldi don't offer it and neither do Lidl. Sensible of them or what?

ExecLine -

Does anyone think like me, that online supermarket shopping for groceries is over-rated?


Yes. Sainsbury were delivering very small size veg and near to its end of shelf life.
Many times they were told - in one ear and out the other.

In the last few weeks in this neighbourhood there has been a distinct lack of delivery vans from Tesco, Sains and Asda. Are shoppers switching to going back to store shopping or are the discounters stealing these shoppers ?

personally, i would never buy fresh produce on line
the temptation for the store to dump its non-prime condition produce on the muppets, is just too tempting

I think they get a bit too confused about 'Market Share'.

This is where 'Big Data' comes in handy for the making of much better decisions and, judging from the recent deal between 'Tesco Points' and Wandisco in the RNS yesterday, Tesco have now got seriously involved with these analytics.

I think Lewis is just the sort of guy to make some powerful decisions about only doing online 'typical supermarket shopping' in selective geographical areas.

Online shopping 'makes a statement' but it must cost the supermarkets a fortune to do it. My guess on it, is that the reality on its profitablity, is just daft.

With online shopping at this time of year, this is what you might well get:

Sainsbury's website crash leaves customers' food orders stuffed for Christmas

We have used Sainsbury's online shop on 4 occasions and found it very good, however we were very selective in what we bought, no fruit and veg or bread and bakery items etc. Very pleased we haven't used it recently.
2517

Cynic by name..... However, I suspect the opposite is True: namely the supermarkets would offload unripe stock, ( to satisfy the Order), but mainly so the fruit (for example) ripens when it's arrived a few days later.

Any suppliers sending out bad fruit ( as in this example), would get it back PDQ and their Name would be off the watch-list....

Now, the issue may be that supermarkets are not specifically Buying for On-Line Sales - but they should . . . . and maybe that means having suitable stock/packages to the Consumer is satisfied.

It may be that some items just don't satisfy the On-Line distribution model - So, you either change the Model, -or- limit their sales volume by price. So easy-shifters are competitively priced and the others less-so.

Former Tesco boss Philip Clarke reduces his stake in the struggling supermarket group



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-2888247/Former-Tesco-boss-Philip-Clarke-reduces-stake-struggling-supermarket-group.html

Will Tesco bite the bullet and launch £3bn rights issue?

Dave’s to-do list

+ Arrest the slide in sales in the UK

+ Which means being more price competitive

+ Fix Tesco’s relationship with its suppliers

+ Maintain investment-grade rating of debt

+ This may mean the sale of businesses

+ Or a £3bn rights issue


http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/75753/will-tesco-bite-the-bullet-and-launch-3bn-rights-issue-75753.html

and how will they plug the massive black hole in their pension fund?

And, and, and ? And all the time the competitors are pulling away. Looks like the pension fund deficit will have to be addressed in the future years, if Tesco makes any turn round progress. One thing for sure is the future Tesco is not going to be anything like the Tesco today. Still a very tall order .

exactly so ..... worth shorting perhaps

In the short time perhaps. The city are going to be looking for signs that the business is being steered in the right direction, when Tesco announces its plans. SP may yoyo.
Looks like it has further to fall. Clarke and Leahy dumping a large proportion of their holdings perhaps tells enough. Interesting to see weather Tesco will drip feed the market or come right out with its plans.

Problem is the crowd, too obvious. The market being the market will expect shorts to pile in. The algos may have different ideas or am I just becoming a wee bit cynical?

The accounts also need looking into. As said before there is to much left off the balance sheet. I have written before about the loans (bonds) in billions on the property side, made to pay the hefty dividends in the past. Good to see a true up to date value on Tesco property assets. As there are calls this is way over stated. One good thing to say is, as store building has all but ceased, there is a huge land bank that can be sold off. All going to take time.

Your right Chris.

Sharecast - Tesco is testing a discount format in its One Stop chain, indicating the group could be considering new ways to combat Aldi and Lidl, the Sunday Times said. Three One Stop branches have been trading as discounters with low prices and limited ranges for the past seven weeks. The trial is the idea of One Stop's boss Tony Reed and is not monitored by Tesco's board.

I certainly would not buy and lease back their stores , praying they are going to be able to lease for the 25yr period etc. Tesco do not even know their destination. They are to late in post 1332.