Tesco has launched its biggest price promotion since suffering its first fall in profits in 20 years.
Britain’s biggest supermarket on Monday launched “price promise”, which will compare prices at the tills and issue coupons if customers’ shopping would have been cheaper at Asda, Sainsbury’s or Morrisons.
The new scheme will cover both branded and own-brand goods, and will issue vouchers up to a maximum of £10 with the customer’s receipts. Online shoppers will be emailed their vouchers.
It is Tesco’s first big price offer since it launched “big price drop” in 2011. That £500m promotion, dubbed the “big price flop” by analysts, was cited by some as one of the factors that led to Tesco’s first profits warning in two decades last January and a subsequent fall in six-monthly profits in Britain of more than 12%.
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The company, which collects about one in every £7 spent on the British high street, has launched a £1bn turnaround plan for its home market.
Chris Bush, Tesco’s new UK boss, said: “We’re working hard to build a better Tesco for our customers in the UK, and ‘price promise’ is an important part of that. It gives our customers complete confidence that they won’t lose out by shopping at Tesco.”
Industry data showed Tesco lost market share in the weeks following the horsemeat scandal. However, market researcher Kantar Worldpanel said Tesco’s dip in market share had more to do with the grocer promoting heavily in the same period a year earlier.