If you actually look at an established Tesco store you'll see the range of choice becomes quite narrow and prices start going up once the competition has been extinguished.

I buy all my stuff online now anyway. Pretty soon we all will and all the stores will disappear, to be replaced by local shops for local people where we can all get screwed over because we ran out of milk and end up having to pay 50% more than the supermarkets for a bottle of soon out of date skanky skimmed as it was the last remaining bottle they had on the shelf.

Is that really a significant drain on your income?

It was an example. If every product I wanted in a local shop was 50% more than at a supermarket, yes it would be a drain on my finances.

Quite clearly there is a majority that are. I do not see the sense in buying bog paper at £6 a pack just to keep some little shop in business when I can get it for £4 a pack from a supermarket.

But you are missing the essential point.

Tesco lure you in to save £2 on your toilet roll. You can then buy pretty poor quality steak for the same price that you could have got decent steak at the butchers, and then can you buy a load of processed food, pop or alcohol because that is the only stuff that is ever reduced in supermarkets.

But at least you save £2 on your bog paper.

I buy all my stuff online now anyway. Pretty soon we all will and all the stores will disappear, to be replaced by local shops for local people where we can all get screwed over because we ran out of milk and end up having to pay 50% more than the supermarkets for a bottle of soon out of date skanky skimmed as it was the last remaining bottle they had on the shelf

I laughed at that.

Incidentally the cheapest milk around here is in Farm Foods – makes me feel grubby just walking in there!

I don't cook much processed food so I like to see the quality of the veg/meat/fish, not possible over the net. That's also a reason I'm not keen on supermarkets, because the quality of meat/fish/veg is relatively poor.

Ok so lets say the majority of a village or small town would vote "no" for tesco, but the council says "yes" and it gets built anyway.

Assuming they don't actually level every small convienience store, butcher, baker etc within say, a 5 mile radius (and I'm pretty sure they don't) it now becomes up to those indignant people who said "no" to now resist the temptation of lower prices, and continue supporting those small businesses that they were so keen on in the first place.

No one is gonna twist your arm to go to tesco, and there will always be small shops that survive initially, so how many of those "no" people would honsetly have the moral integrity to stick to their principals and support the small business's, against saving themselves money?

Tesco lure you in to save £2 on your toilet roll. You can then buy pretty poor quality steak for the same price that you could have got decent steak at the butchers, and then can you buy a load of processed food, pop or alcohol because that is the only stuff that is ever reduced in supermarkets.

I can understand what you are saying, but I get my fruit n veg from Able and Cole (organic) and buy meat from local butchers (organic where I can). The items that I can buy anywhere, I will buy at the cheapest source – jars of cooking sauces for when I don't want to cook from scratch etc.

But then I like to have the freedom of choice. I choose to save money where I can on products that are the same wherever I go, and buy other items based on quality. Funnily enough, in my local experience, I cannot find a greengrocers that have veg of as good quality/fresh as supermarkets. I have lost count of the amount of times I have bought from markets/greengrocers and then opened an onion to find it rotten inside, cut a clove of garlic to find it green and sprouting in the middle.

I would never not shop at Tesco just because they are Tesco and I don't shop at Tesco because Tesco are nasty.

I don't think supermarkets are that cheap for a lot of things – like fruit and veg, our local greengrocers is silly cheap, I reckon about half the cost of buying the same stuff in our Morrisons (which is quite a cheapy supermarket). And the quality is better than the supermarket stuff too. If we had a market, fruit & veg are even cheaper there usually.

It's true that supermarkets are good for getting all the things you need in one shop, but I don't think they're much cheaper really.

Joe

not used Tesco for years as they have been doing this kind of thing for a while.
Like all big companies they will only stop when it affects the amount of money they make.
Consumers by continuing to go there allow them to do this.
Sadly the average consumer does not care for what Tesco does, the plight of farmers, the condition of workers in China , child labour that made their clothes etc.
Their prime/sole concern is how cheap it is for them.

Why independent shops are better..

Wanted some diced lamb on Saturday, went to the butcher, asked for some (while chatting to other customers), no problem sir, picks up a whole leg, cuts off what we wanted, dices it, charges us a pitance for the quality of the meat, the effort required (no mechanical reclaimation here) and the personal touch.

Might have cost us 50p more than something in a tray on a shelf in Tesco, might even have been cheaper, not the point though.

I can trawl round local shops trying to get food for the week on a saturday or i can buy it at a supermarket in an evening and ride my bike on a saturday. If small businesses are serious about trying to survive then why not open just one evening a week?

or i can buy it at a supermarket in an evening

Or you make a favourites list at Tesco online and just re-order all the things you buy every time you need to, then just wait in for the pre-defined 2 hr slot and have it brought to your door. No need to haver the stress of driving and you can choose not to have plastic bags if you want to hug some seals too.

Even more time for riding then.

I can't see it taking off.

Machynlleth is home to only hippies and farmers. Farmers pockets arms are too short to reach the bottom of their pockets and hippies must have 101 reasons not to shop at Tesco. Therefore the Co-Op will thrive.

I also can't see Aberystwyth locals making the 19 mile trek up to Mach as the road is longer than the 19 miles may suggest. Tesco have tried to land a store in Aber many times and I'm sure one would be successful if they could get passed the planning office, but they haven't in the past 20 years.

when local shops start opening outside of the normal small shop opening hours (like, when I'm not working) then I'll consider using them… until small shops jump out of their little stuck-in-their-ways world, I have no option but to use supermarkets…

EDIT – I realise i'm a little OT in this moan 🙂

Some funny blinkered thinking going on here. We live in a capitalist country, which means that we shop in the shops that we consider good and the ones that aren't good go bust. I used to shop in local butchers/bakers etc in Cardiff and often the service was crap and the food wasn't as good as Tesco. The bread in all of the local bakers at the time (in Roath) wasn't a patch on Tescos bread.

So instead of just bleating about how Tescos is taking away your market – make your shop better! The capitalist system demands that you find something that people want and sell it to them. Years ago, someone thought 'hey there's a business opportunity here for a butchers' so they opened one. That doesn't really give them a right to a living in perpetuity. They may even have taken away someone else's business for themselves.

Having a Tescos might mean that more people will come to your town. So you could capitalise (pun intended) on the increased footfall and open up a shop that sells something (or does something) that Tesco doesn't. Innovation is a core part of the system.

A while ago I went to Tallin in Estonia. What struck me was how hard everyone was trying to get you into their businesses. Every restaurant or coffee shop was nicely decorated, had great service and good food. Because until recently they didn't have the chance to run their own businesses the way they wanted. It was interesting to compare it to the scruffy cafes or crap pubs that've been depending on the same set-in-their-ways customers for decades, and have no idea how to innovate and get new customers. Watch a couple of episodes of the Hotel Inspector to see what I mean 🙂

Wanted some diced lamb on Saturday, went to the butcher, asked for some (while chatting to other customers), no problem sir, picks up a whole leg, cuts off what we wanted, dices it, charges us a pitance for the quality of the meat, the effort required (no mechanical reclaimation here) and the personal touch.

How do you think Tesco gets diced lamb?

There's a guy out back butchering legs of lamb…

Tesco have tried to land a store in Aber many times

I though that there was quite a large one there already?

There's a guy out back butchering legs of lamb…

And sealing it into little airtight packages? 🙄

Wouldn't be so simplistic as to say that all supermarkets are rubbish, or that all local shops are great, but Tescos really is the worst of all worlds – not as cheap as Asda or Lidl, but with the same rubbish selection – hoof and eyelid meatlike grills and cheapo jeans that my Dad wouldn't wear.

I can trawl round local shops trying to get food for the week on a saturday or i can buy it at a supermarket in an evening and ride my bike on a saturday. If small businesses are serious about trying to survive then why not open just one evening a week?

Conversley, I can go shopping on a Saturday morning whilst my daughter spends 40 mins at ballet and get pretty much everything we need, someone's got to take her (sometimes my wife does the shopping and I take my son to the park where I spend half the time picking up broken glass in the playground, but that's another story…grr).

Shopping with kids in Tesco is awful, shopping in a small town, maybe visiting the library at the same time, is ime much less of an issue and quite pleasant really and much more of a learning experience for them as the shopkeepers chat to them instead of trying to get them to pester us for stuff.

We've actually organised ourselves in this way because that's how we want to live, I tend to ride in the evenings too. It's quite easy really.

Holmfirth's my patch. Tesco are trying to build here (about a mile out of town, i.e. people won't use the town centre itself) but they've come up against serious opposition. I can't see it happening. The incumbent Coop is being forced to up its game though.

http://www.keepholmfirthspecial.co.uk/

I'm definitely against Tesco here.

You want to live in Stafford,
A huge ASDA
A huge Sainsburys
A huge Tesco

Sainsbury and ASDA have done little to upset the dynamics of the town,
Tesco however, built on land that compounded the towns traffic problems.
It put its petrol station in a position that completely puts its customers in peril as they enter / leave due to the fact the main stores carpark is badly designed.
I would love to wring the necks of the town planners who let the monstrosity be built in the format that it is.. Just going to Stafford Tesco is bloddy dangerous..
Its not the fact that Tesco ARE arriving in Mid Wales, its what they plan to dump on your infrastructure that you should be worrying about..

Vote with your wallets friends, vote with your wallets.

Shops all compete on the same basis – find your USP and exploit it. Range, price, sense of community, niche-ness, flexibilty, customer-friendliness, advice, knowledge – the list goes on.

Small guys working out how to fight back against Tescos will give us the shops we want. Taking notice will give us the shops we deserve. If that makes sense

I go out of my way to shop locally. At times it is a pain, and there are some things I can't get. I agree with those above who'd like to see late opening times one day a week. I can see that it would be hard to achieve if you've got a very busy schedule, kids etc. because it does require effort and planning.

I have no idea if it costs more, but I know the food I get is better (meat especially so) and that's important to me.

I'm also mental enough to drive for 40 minutes to go to a record shop. Whilst I was there, I paid twice as much for an album I could have got from Amazon. But I also bought two recommendations which were great, and had a pleasant time chatting with the owner. For me, that stuff is worth the extra.

igm.
have you been in a big supermarket ?
They are paranoid about 'other outlet types', in tesco;;
Electrical. (attacking the likes of Currys etc)
Reading materials (attacking WHSmith etc)
Clothing (attacking any clothing retailer)
Perfumes / cosmetics ( attacking Boots etc)
Toys, car cleaning goods, flowers, bakerys,
They want total domination in the way we go about spending our money !

Having a Tescos might mean that more people will come to your town.

how many Tesco stores are actually in the town centre?
They are all on the margins of a town and do FA for the town read the thread even Tesco admits it causes job losses in towns it builds stores in 🙄

For me, that stuff is worth the extra.

And that goes, full circle, to what I said ages ago about freedom of choice. But apparently I am wrong.

You want to live in Stafford,
A huge ASDA
A huge Sainsburys
A huge Tesco

Is that all?

Here in Swansea :
1 Morrisons
1 Asda
1 Sainsbury
3 large Tesco
2 or 3 Tesco Express.
plus Aldi/Lidl, Coop, etc
They are the ones I can think of quickly within Swansea.

Also planning applications to move one of the Tesco to make it larger, for another Asda, etc.

This isn't dragging in people from smaller towns around, because Tesco have built in just about anywhere that has more than 5 houses.

However we are very lucky to have a decent indoor market with good butchers, veg stalls and excellent fishmongers.

Within 5 miles of where I live there is in excess of 500,000 sq ft of supermarkets.
Sainsbury x 3
Tesco x 4 (not including Tesco metro)
Morrissons x 2
Sainsbury x 4
Waitrose x 4
Asda x 1
Iceland x 1
also a couple of Netto/Aldi/Lidl

Idle-Jon,

Swansea is just a tad bigger than Stafford !

Within arms reach of my hands is a laptop where I can buy it all online.

Eco-windbag-hypocrite moves to quaint town in mid-Wales (buying a car in the process so he can continue to get around, plugging his books and maybe going to a supermarket in the next town). Less than two years later, Tesco threatens to open a store there making it slightly less nice. He (ab)uses his position to get national coverage of a local issue.

Sorry, not feeling especially sympathetic. If the residents like, and use, the local shops they will remain viable and open. In reality, I suspect most local residents (the 4/5ths not raising objections) would quite like to get their shopping in one hit at somewhere that actually keeps things in stock most of the time.

i come from a town called dunstable

its always been a bit of a pants commuter town, but has some noticeable good points, not least of which the local downs

anyway since the opening of 1 giants tesco, 1giant sainsburys, 1 giant asda and an aldi in the last 20 years it has turned into the poster boy for the death of the local high street the soul has been completely removed
the money programme and dunstable

there is even a facebook group trying to save it

but imho its too late for that the big stores havent just closed small businesses theyve sucked the self respect and sense of community from the town

facebook group

neverfastenuff – Member
igm.
have you been in a big supermarket ?…
…They want total domination in the way we go about spending our money !

Once or twice (about 2330 on Monday was the last time) and yes they want every penny you spend – but forgive me, I don't feel entirely sorry for WHSmiths or Currys. They're big boys and have to look out for themselves.
That said I wouldn't buy much from the likes Currys anyway – they don't stock the higher end cameras and HiFi stuff. (and yes I an a lucky unrepentent middleclass type who can afford it)

There's two big Tescos in York (a pretty small town – also two Sainsburys, an Adsa, a Morrisons) and the Currys / Dixons group doesn't seem to be doing two well. The two specialist HIFi shops seem to be doing OK though. As are plenty of butchers, farmers markets and bike shops. Good small shops will always survive – bad ones will, and should, fail.

And that goes, full circle, to what I said ages ago about freedom of choice. But apparently I am wrong.

But how long can freedom of choice and such cheap prices for our food last? How long can we continue to consume without concerning ourselves with the consequences? Whether that be social-political or health or environmental implications?

My gut feeling is that striving to save more and more money off our already ridiculously cheap food whilst consuming more and more stuff is ultimately destroying our society and is going to cause a major conflict when China and India catch up and start demanding the same standards as we have enjoyed and taken for granted all our lives.

I have this personal philosophy called "a fair price for a fair job", I use it in both my work and personal life. Seems to be doing me ok, and other people too.

I suspect most local residents (the 4/5ths not raising objections) would quite like to get their shopping in one hit at somewhere that actually keeps things in stock most of the time.

Why, because they don't give a shit about what might happen to their town and the fact that many jobs will be lost? Just so it's a little bit more convenient for them?

I think that nicely highlights the problem with this country at the moment, full of selfish people who just want to save a few quid and half an hour a week and **** everyone else.

How long can we continue to consume without concerning ourselves with the consequences?

And buying from your local shop helps how? Do you think that paying 20% more for a jar of Dolmio sauce and some bog paper will somehow save our planet?

has anyone realised that sueprmarkets are good, cheap, quick and have a large variety of products?

I buy my household shopping from Tesco online and get my music from P2P, everything else comes from Amazon. I CBA to travel to shops and traipse about with the proletariat. 😆

York (a pretty small town)

It has a Minster, it is a city.

😉

I though that there was quite a large one there already?

Yeh we currently have

Small Sommerfield in town (Changing to Co-Op soon)
Large Morrisons out of town
Co-Op small out of town (just closed to become a small supermarket chainstore)
and a couple of Spars and another tiny co-op to serve outlying residential area.