Tesco Direct Closing July 9th

[Mavrick]

As some of you may have noticed DVDs and blu-ray have been gone from the site for a while but it's been confirmed that the entire Tesco Direct site will be taken offline July 9th.

Any pre orders you had that are due for release after that date will not be honoured.

[chip75]

Another supermarket on-line entertainment store bites the dust.

Our local M&S closed this week ...

[Mavrick]

M&S are really taking a beating this past year, the year ahead isn't looking great either.

As far as Tesco they have been up year on year since the scandal which is good, but then you realise how many jobs they cut and how most of their stores are now like mini malls with multiple 3rd party outlets within them such as Holland & Barret and the Arcadia Group as well as hair salons Subways, not to mention selling off their own Opticians to Vision Express, they are turning in to landlords more than a retailer. I wouldn't be surprised to see a 3rd party come in and take over sales of things like TVs and Laptops etc.

All means they have less staff to pay whilst raking in rent from 3rd parties it's win win for them not so great for the staff that will get cut.

[Thane]

That's a shame, they tend to have some good deals. Didn't buy many Blu-rays from there but I did get my Nintendo Switch from them.

[drush9999]

Should have emulated amazon.co.uk by selling almost everything with a functionally rich website, both Tesco and Argos were too late getting online and offering the same stuff competitively. Real shame as we could have had our own UK Amazon competitor.

[malcy30]

Originally Posted by drush9999

Should have emulated amazon.co.uk by selling almost everything with a functionally rich website, both Tesco and Argos were too late getting online and offering the same stuff competitively. Real shame as we could have had our own UK Amazon competitor.

The problem Tesco faced is similar to what M&S reported with their results yesterday. British companies just seem incapable of managing and profitability running the logistics of massive web operations. Both the website and fulfilment of orders.

This is where Amazon are miles ahead of everyone they have a model that works and is scalable as their sales increase.

Sadly they said the closure of Tesco Direct will lead to 500 job loses both in customer services (call centre somewhere) and the distribution warehouse they stored the goods in and mailed out from.

Said one killer was the cost of shipping they just couldn't make this cost effective. I guess the desire for free shipping by consumers.

Even the likes of Zavvi have now removed free shipping no matter value unless you include a steelbook. Is 99p per order but is still an explicit charge.

I know others are thinking of trying the Amazon Prime model of an annual fee for free delivery. Got a survey from M&S last year (as I am an online customer) asking would I pay for similar for them. Where though Amazon win is they bundle in the other stuff as well Amazon Video, Basic version of Amazon Music, Basic version of Kindle lending library. So greater perceived value than just the delivery.

[Mavrick]

Let's not forget .com still exists and you have been able to order films etc from there since direct stopped offering them. Expect to see a lot of products moving over to the .com site once direct is gone.

Th main issue people don't seem to realise is that direct was a completely separate operation to .com and the products they sell in store. A lot of people complain that if their order hasn't arrived then why can't they give them the product from the shop floor instead that's not how it works. Might as well order something from Amazon then pop in Tesco and say hey look I ordered this but I want it now give me one off the shop floor.

They were essentially running two businesses and two websites and two DCs. They used 3rd party couriers like yodel to deliver orders to store when Tesco has it's very own distribution service, just didn't make sense.

Moving it to .com means it's all sourced from the the same DC and they can use their own proprietary delivery network. Why this wasn't the case from day 1 I'll never know.

[don3663]

It was annoying enough that blus got moved to groceries but now the whole store...

Anyways, mainly used them for games anyway.

Zoom / HMV for me then.