“Supermarket giant Tesco is continuing its advance into consumer electronics with a trial to hand over part of its store space to Apple, the computer company behind the iPod,” Fergus Sheppard reports for The Scotsman. “The retailer has struck a deal with California-based Apple to use part of its flagship Milton Keynes store as a dedicated area for the Apple products. It is the first time Tesco has given over a dedicated part of a store to a single, non-food brand. Managers at the supermarket chain are now considering rolling out the Apple area to other stores following positive reports from the Milton Keynes trial, which launched last month. A spokesman for Tesco said: ‘It is early days at the moment, but so far it has gone very well. We will continue to look at how the trial performs before deciding whether to roll it out.'”
“Tesco’s strategy revolves around being as strong in what it terms ‘non-food’ as in food sales. Aside from the weekly shop, the supermarket generates more than £6 billion a year in non-food areas, including electronics, home entertainment – for example DVDs and computer games – clothing and health and beauty. In consumer electronics, it has even started marketing an own-brand microwave,” Sheppard reports. “The iconic iPod is likely to prove one of the most profitable sellers from the supermarket’s tie-up with Apple. Ironically, Tesco’s first entry into digital music placed it into direct competition with iTunes and Apple. In November 2004, Tesco launched a digital download services for music fans which allowed them to download tracks for 79p each. However, the songs were in the Windows Media format made by Microsoft and were not compatible with iTunes or the iPod.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews reader “Dave H” for the link.]
“The supermarket is trialling the concept at its Milton Keynes store and will roll the concept out to other Tesco Extra stores nationwide if successful. The 120 sq ft area will not operate as a concession but will stock Apple computers and accessories, as well as smaller items such as iPods,” Mark Faithfull and José Riera report for Retail Week. “An Apple spokesperson added: ‘We are working to expand our relationship with Tesco. There are currently 150 Tesco stores selling iPods and the Milton Keynes store is the first to trial the combination of iPod and computer accessories in a dedicated space.’ Apple announced expansion of its European operations earlier this week, with standalone stores in Germany and Italy.”
Full article here.
[UPDATE 12:28pm EST: Added Retail Week information and changed headline to reflect possibilities of inclusion of Mac models.]
This is a big deal for Apple. Tesco has over 2,000 stores worldwide.
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Related article:
Tesco to start selling Apple iPods across the UK – May 20, 2005
Hey, listen . . . maybe we can find all those “other” players at some of de other giants of retail. You know, like Bradlees. Or Ames. Or Caldors.
Yeh-heh-hehessssss . . . iPods. I love de smell of expansion in de morning.
And no, I’m not quoting Michael Moore.
Excellent news for us UK Apple fans!
My Wife can get the groceries while me and my 5yr old boy can drool over the macs for an hour.
Bliss!!
I will have to start going to Tescos again!
This is interesting, I live in the UK, where Tesco is based. I am not a huge fan of Tesco, never quite got past the ‘pile em high, sell em cheap’ philosophy. But there demographics are very broad, plus they are the biggest supermarket retailer in the UK. If they go beyond iPods to selling iMacs, that would introduce Apple to a lot of people who think still, that Apple is either Granny Smith or French Delicious! Good on ya Apple UK.
According to Retail Week, the UK trade paper for (surprise!) retailers, the deal will result in Tesco stocking both Macs and iPods.
It’s only a small area per shop, but for those well out of range of an Apple Store, it’s going to give them a chance to see and hopefully use a Mac for real.
If you consider that £1 in every £8 spent in UK retail is spent in Tescos then it becomes apparent that this could be huge.
yes, this all very good for the ipod, but ipods wont last forever, they need to be pushing macs in these ‘mini-stores’, seems like a reacurring theme apple missing tricks to sell the mac.
Johnny M, don’t you mean Washington Delicious?
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^ No, I think he really meant McCoun’s.
McCoun – All-purpose apple with the thinnest, most tender skin of all apples, making it tops for eating.
Yeh-heh-hehessssss . . . don’t mess with Mr. Appleseed.
Hey Johnny M, I think I once humped a pet of yours at a Tesco’s in de clotted cream aisle. Yeh-hessss, I think she was that rare breed . . . what do you call them? . . . oh yes — an Apple-achian Mountain Bitch! You know, de kind with de bad teeth.
‘Course, it was kind of hard to tell, being in de land of bad dental care. So I sent her a case of Hedley and Wyche. And a pressure washer for her mouth.
Hey, I keed. I keed our allies across de pond. Because I care.
Okay, no — because it’s easy.
What’s funny for us limeys is that you think we have bad teeth, when in fact we don’t. And we think you’re all obese and stupid, when in fact you are.
Back on topic: Milton Keynes is an unredeemably depressing new-town shithole, populated by faux-caribbean neon-white acne-ridden youths in sweatshop-fake sportswear and nine-carat bling. Why Tesco would try selling Apple products in a town that represents a vile, steaming, infected blob of freshly squirted pus upon the clean, shiny mirror of South England is beyone anyone’s guess.
As long as we are not expecting advice from checkout girl (or boy) number 4, I don’t have a problem.
At the moment the only non-Apple outlets are John Lewis (good) and PC World (bloody awful). It’s about time Mr & Mrs Average tripped over the Apple world of no blue screens, no viruses and time at the weeked to do something other than reformat the hard drive of their PC
Hey, Frogsmella … way to generalize about a country with 6 TIMES the population of Britain. And that’s 73 TIMES bigger than yours.
Triumph’s right. You know for a fact that a HIGHER PERCENTAGE of British have poor dental health compared to the population of the United States.
Personally, I think it’s because of all the shit beer and Marmite you royal-worshippers cram down your brown chiclet-lined pie holes.
But my British spies tell me it has more to do with your substandard toilet and plumbing design which in turn discourages you all from spending any significant amount of time in your “loo’s”. Or drinking any of your brown water.
Oh, and by the way, I really, REALLY like your anti-Chav rant at the end, you racist hypocritical two-faced limey bastard.
Now in closing, some of us may be stupid, but at least we’re stupid with great white teeth.
Hint: Floss is for your TEETH.
Frogmella, you said what everyone was thinking in a way that made me giggle. For that I salute you.
Funny thing is people will buy these Macs – it’ll be very competitively priced- and many won’t even know or notice that its not Windows..
What they’ll need is some good posters – LOOK! COMPUTERS WITHOUT VIRUSES. YOU THOUGHT IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE BUT TESCO HAS FOUND THEM.
Hey Crumpets Suck,
It could be a lot worse – we could wash/bath/shower as litttle as the French do!
Your lucky the north atlantic trade winds blow west-to-east – then you’d get a real ‘taste’ of our frog-eating neighbors…
Back on topic: Milton Keynes is an unredeemably depressing new-town shithole
…that stole the Wimbledon football club, which has the utter nerve to still call itself “the Dons”. I have no idea where this place is and I hate it. (Having lived through losing a sports team, I’m sensitive to shit like that…)
Hey,
Now be careful boys – you know what happened last time we had a fight about food stuffs!!
As it happens, I’m a Brit living in the US, so I do appreciate that obesity does not occur in 100 % of the US population. And I think that obesity, whilst not as bad as the States, is on the rise in the UK. Most likely because of all the MickeyD’s everyone eats!!
There are many great microbrews in the States that are similar in quality to a good pint of bitter. However, it should be noted that the States popularized the drinking of pale yellow liquid which in most cases resembles urine in both appearance and taste. Not something to be proud of unless you’re stranded on a boat thousand of miles from land.
As for Marmite, don’t go there dude….
We may be obese and stupid but at least we can come up with better spy devices than fake rocks!!
Woah. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut about this article now
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LordRobin, are you by chance the author of the AFC Wimbledon widget?
Dave H: No, I’m just an American fan of English football who read the sad story of Wimbledon while researching teams that used to play in the top flight. It just rubbed me the wrong way. We Americans are used to greedy owners screwing over cities, but I didn’t think it happened in England.
What we forget is that, although Jonathan Ives is English, he had to go to America to be successful….
… to work for an American computer maker that we all seem to love so much.
And by the way I’m English – with bad teeth, I guess.
Oh… but I’m thin and reasonably intelligent.
Hey Crumpets Suck (or whatever your name is),
This could turn into a nice little fight, so I’ll try be slighty tactful. The three worst things in the world are ignorance, arogance and Microsoft! See where I am getting at?
And from my many years of living across the pond, white teeth aren’t very interesting if the words that pass through them aren’t elligable! Oh, and who designed the iPod again etc…
Hey Nay — that’s “ILLEGIBLE“, dingus.
I don’t know what the f-ck “elligable” is.
And since “illegible” refers to the WRITTEN — not spoken — word, “illegible” things can’t come out of people’s mouths — unless they’re idiot Brits who can’t spell “elligable”!
Now shut the hell up before we come over there en masse and open a can of whoop ass on you thin scally dorks while humping all your saggy women.
I think that there’s a big difference between selling an iPod and an iMac.
Most people have some sort of idea what an iPod is, but fewer know why an iMac would be a good computer for them to use. If you then factor in that there are people who detest Mac users, just as there are people who detest those from other countries, there is always the likelihood that there will be the occasional idiot who wants to make a fuss just to make themselves look big ( unaware that it actually has the opposite effect ).
Much as I’d like Macs to be more widely available in the UK, I don’t think that this particular initiative is destined to be a success.
” . . . your brown chiclet-lined pie holes”
Apologies to Triumph (since he kicked-off this round of genuinely funny reading), but this may be the funniest thing I’ve read on MDN in a long time.
Sorry, British allies. But it is.
Funny, that is.