INTERVIEW: JOHN STANHOPE, ROB SALTER, TESCO
think it is a spoiling technique. It’s not. There is a customer demand for it, so we are going to exploit it. As long as we have the right people in- store supporting the customer, and we are not buying the wrong gear, then it should do well.”
FOOD FOR THOUGHT The turnaround at Tesco has been rapid, but the supermarket giant is far from finished. It wants to be the clear No.2 video games retailer in the UK with 20 per cent of the UK games software market.
“The reason we say 20 per cent is because if you look at our DVD and music share, and they are more mature markets, that is broadly where we are,” says Salter. “There is no reason why in gaming
we can’t be there or thereabouts.” Salter adds that if they reach the 20 per cent milestone, games will overtake DVDs to become Tesco’s biggest entertainment category. To achieve that goal Stanhope and his team want to make Tesco as specialist as possible, which includes bringing experts and entertainment desks into its biggest stores. Says Stanhope: “The idea is that
Tesco at its best in entertainment should be as good as a specialist games retailer.” “We want to be a place where people who are really into games can shop and find the products they want to buy,” concludes Salter.
“
The idea is that Tesco at its best in entertainment should be as good as a specialist retailer. John Stanhope, Tesco
£1.6bn
Tesco’s half-year pre-tax profits for 2010/2011
“We also want to be a place where those who aren’t knowledgeable about games can come in and not be intimidated. I often see people and mums looking at the displays and saying, ‘What was it now? An Xbox?’ They are buying for someone else and need help to make the purchase. “In all those regards we are not exactly where we’d like to be. For something that is quite technical for a lot of people, supermarkets are not an easy environment to pull that off. Supermarkets are busy and fast moving and there is not always a lot of people around to help. “But increasingly, we are getting there.”
Tesco certainly has its critics, particularly when it comes to its aggressive pricing. But its rise to prominence is not just down to how much it charges for Call of Duty. People will continue to say what
they like about Tesco, but one thing they won’t be able to deny is how Salter, Stanhope and the team have turned the company from the over- promising, under-delivering retailer of the past, into one of the UK’s most important video game outlets.
THE SUPPLY CHAIN CHALLENGE
MUSIC IS in danger of being culled from Tesco, but the retailer is confident that with a different approach, the games market can thrive. Tesco’s category director for entertainment Rob Salter says artists, movie studios and game developers should only get paid for their products after the item has been sold at retail. That way, Salter says, we can reduce
32 October 22nd 2010
waste and put more product in-front of the customer. “We need to change our thinking on how we value content in the supply chain, and don’t let ourselves get too bamboozled by digital or physical,” says Salter.
“Entertainment, particularly music and DVD, is very much an impulse category. When they see it they buy it,
and when they stop seeing it they stop buying it. “When Woolworths and Zavvi went, half the market did migrate to the other retailers, and the other half of it just disappeared. “We should all be doing our utmost to protect the space we have left. And to do that we need to do something entirely different.”
www.mcvuk.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120