The big Tesco fight club

Tesco wants to open a new store on Stokes Croft. Although I do quite hate Tesco, their approach to business, the way that they squeeze small suppliers and the way they try to monopolise the market, the following also occurs:

'This change will put small businesses out of business'

I don't sympathise with this statement. Many 'small businesses' on Stokes Croft, in my opinion, don't treat the customer particularly well.

Examples:

'The Best Supermarket', which consistently breaks up multipacks of alcohol and forces customers to buy beer or cider in individual units. This is illegal. It is essentially stealing from the supplier as well as the consumer and also takes advantage of people who are celebrating or enjoying their weekend as there is nowhere else to buy alcohol at a late hour in the area. Tesco do not do this. If you challenge 'Best' about this practice, they get very pushy and I've seen them become quite aggressive. NB: If any of the 'Best' crew are reading- the clue is in the phrase, 'multipack: not for resale' which you may have noticed on, well, virtually everything you sell...

Licata and sons, which consistently sell out of date products, and very poor quality vegetables. They, like many small businesses in the area sometimes pull tricks like putting very green potatoes in orange sacks to hide the fact that they are fast approaching the end of their natural, sprouty lives. They have a 'reduced vegetable' box for vegetables on the turn, and yet almost always try to charge me full price for them until I point out that they're meant to be cheaper. The products are overpriced, and the staff in the store are so rude that I leave in a rage each time. How hard is it to smile and say 'hello'? Is it worth risking going out of business for?

Various other small convenience stores that don't stock what you want. Though it's quaint to look through 80 brands of incense and lots of scented toilet paper at times, it gets a little old when you really, really need baking soda to bake something and you feel like an historian searching through 100 years worth of sediment for Captain Scotts drinking flask...

Small businesses CAN compete with Tesco.They simply have to offer things that Tesco doesn't offer- like friendly local service, an atmosphere that is very un-supermarket, locally-sourced produce that can be traced back to the local field, local specialities or 'ethnic' products and non-generic items.

I don't sympathise with businesses that say that they can't compete with Tesco. Capitalism, which until we change it, is the system under which we live and thrive, is a hard master. It is up to local communities to raise their game to save local stores- if the stores are worth saving.

What can be done:

Arrange voluntary quotas on how much shopping is done in supermarkets vs local stores. Have awareness and publicity drives to help local businesses. Form meeting rings of local business men and women to discuss strategy. Don't go to Tesco...

Stokes Croft is described as 'vibrant', 'alternative', 'artistic' and sometimes 'anarchic'. Surely, rather than a threat, the opening of this Tesco should be viewed as an opportunity to showcase how an independent community can reject current retail trends?

Or perhaps Stokes Croft isn't as independent, alternative and vibrant as it thinks?


Please note, the opinions expressed above and below are those of the writers, and do not necessarily reflect those of Guide2Bristol. Guide2Bristol accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for the accuracy or content of member comments.
 
Posted by: John Edward Strange on 19 March 2010