TitleE-Business Strategy Review Report for Tesco.com

1E-Business

Management Summary

The main purpose of this report is to review and analyse one of the world’s largest retail online

grocery in the UK, Tesco.com. The report would show the various E-business strategy used by

Tesco since the launching of their website in year 2000. It will show how Tesco has been using e-

business to expand, to save and to increase customer service in the UK.

This report first shows a brief summary of the history of Tesco such as when Tesco was founded

and by whom, how Tesco got its name and when Tesco launched its website, Tesco.com. A SWOT

analysis was also conducted of to see their strength, which is their customer service, their weakness,

which is their high dependency of the UK and Europe countries, their opportunities which is the

growing demand for online shopping, music and video and lastly their threats which are their

competitors.

A PEST analysis was also done to access the market for Tesco.com, along with a competitor

analysis in which Porter’s Five Forces were used to analyse the treats that can take place with the

online grocery. It also, shows the e-business strategy that they have adopted and are planning to

adopt along with the legal and ethical issues that they must take into account when running an

online grocery site.

With their tagline “Every Little Helps” Tesco.com has proven to be the best when it comes to

customer service and has been very successful over the years, with extremely high profits that has

been increasing. Tesco.com needs to continue to striving for excellent service and good prices in

order to remain above their competitors.

2E-Business

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Tesco’s HistoryTesco was founded in year 1919 by Jack Cohen from a market stall in East London which made a

profit of £1 from the sales of £4 on his first day. Which in those day were considered to be a lot. In

1924 he created Tesco’s brand name from the initials of a tea supplier, Thomas Edward Stockwell

(TES) and the first two letters of his last name, Cohen (CO). He later opened of the first Tesco

named store in 1932. (Tesco PLC, 2012).

However, it was in year 2000 that Tesco launched its e-commerce business, Tesco.com, expanding

its range of products selling clothes, electrical and personal finance products, online. By September

2005 Tesco.com received 170,000 orders per week with sales of £401 million for the first half of the

year (Chaffey, 2009). Although Tesco’s primary dot-com operations are based in the U.K.,

particularly in the greater London area, Tesco has also successfully exported their dot-com strategy

to other countries including Poland, Czech Republic, Thailand and South Korea.  (Wulfraat, 2014)

Tesco.com allows customers to place orders from any computer, tablet, smartphones and even

virtual shopping walls in subways. Customer has the option of click and collect or pick up later at

the local store drive thru or delivery at their door. (Wulfraat, 2014)

1.2 Products and Services offered by Tesco.comProducts ServicesGrocery Items Financial ServicesFresh Produce Broadband InternetFrozen Food Phone ServicesTesco Direct Music downloads

Books Petrol DVDs Electricity Electronics Clothing Furniture DVD rentals

Wines Flight and HolidaysClub CardPrinting ServicesHealth ServicesI.T SupportBeauty Consultation Services

Table 1.1 showing the products and services offered by Tesco.com (Tesco, 2014)

3E-Business

Figure 1.1 showing the timeline of Tesco.com products & services

2.0 Situation Analysis

2.1 PEST AnalysisThe PEST analysis is a business measurement tool that is useful for understanding market growth or

decline, and as such the position, potential and direction for a business. PEST is an acronym for

Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors, which are used to assess the market for a

business. (Chapman, 2014)

Political

Because of the rise in obesity and other health problems the UK government is considering the

introduction of ‘Fat Tax’. This is a tax that would be added to certain food item that contains more

than a certain percentage of saturated fat. (Griffith, O’Connell, 2011) This can affect Tesco.com

negatively, since a rise in food prices could mean a drop in sales for certain food items. Customers

may choose a healthier food option, which may also affect Tesco.com positively by increasing the

sale of their healthy range of food items.

Economic

Over past few years the UK has been experiencing a downfall in their economy which has only

recently became stable showing slight growth. With this level of uncertainty existing in an economy

and with the austerity programmes on customer spending, customers would be looking for ways to

curb their spending were possible. (Peston, 2015) This may affect Tesco.com positively since goods

4E-Business

Grocery (2000)

Phone Services (2003)

Music Download

(2004)

Clothing (2005)

Tesco Direct (2006)

Beauty Consultaion

Services (2014)

bought online are most times cheaper than in store goods, causing an increase in their online sales.

This can also affect Tesco negatively since some customers may choose not to spend at all or spend

very little on item that they do not really need.

Social

With the current age we live in, people are becoming busier than before with work and personal life

and do not always have that extra time to go store to store shopping. This can be a big advantage to

Tesco.com since people now prefer the convenience and comfort of shopping at home. (Rigby,

2011) Especially the elderly that are becoming more technologically advance but are less mobile

and cannot move around as usual. This beats, having to face the heavy traffic on the roadways and

lowers the chances of customers being affected by crime. Online shopping can be a huge benefit to

them because goods are now delivered at customer’s door steps, therefore increasing sales at

Tesco.com tremendously.

Technological

We live in an era where technology is the norm. Everyone is using it, from the youngest to the

oldest and it is making our lives a lot easier. With this rise of technology and digital capabilities,

consumers are changing the way they shop. Customers want to be able to shop however, whenever

and wherever they want. They want to shop across store formats, on smartphones and on tablets.

They are no longer choosing just a simple trip to a store, but are making much more dynamic and

complex journeys to purchase. (Tesco, 2014) Tesco now has their online shopping mobile app that

allow customers to purchase goods and services right in the palm of their hands. It also allows your

phone to act as an electronic membership card that allows customer to scan their phones at the tills

to get discounts and obtain their loyalty points. (Tesco. 2014)

2.2 Competitor Analysis Porter’s Five Forces would be used to analyse the threats that can take place with Tesco.com. These

five forces include:

Bargaining power of buyers

Bargaining power of suppliers

Threat of substitute goods and services

5E-Business

Barriers to entry

Rivalry amongst existing competitors

Figure 2.1 showing Porter Five Forces Diagram (Meek, 2012)

Bargaining power of buyers

The internet has increased the bargaining power of the customers on the whole. This is because

there are many options available for the customers to choose from. Hence, influencing the price of

goods offered by different supplier. The internet has allowed customers are ability to shop around

from the comforts of their homes and compare the different prices offered by different suppliers,

choosing the good that is at the cheaper price. This can cause suppliers like Tesco.com, to adjust

their prices to that of their competitors or even lower. (Chaffey, 2009).

Buying power of suppliers

The threats arising from the suppliers of Tesco.com are far less than that of its customers, but still

needs to be considered. Many factors influence the bargaining power of the supplier, some would

include having more buyers than sellers in the market. This can affect Tesco.com since the supplier

can choose who they would want to do business it and at what price they want to sell their products.

If for instance one of the suppliers decides to sell Tesco’s competitor at a cheaper price, then this

would be an issues for Tesco.com since they would now have to drop their prices in order to remain

competitive. (Chaffey, 2009)

6E-Business

Threat of substitute goods and services

Having substitute products and services can pose problems to Tesco.com especially if they are

cheaper. Currently Tesco has its own brand of grocery items such as bake beans, juices, wines

which can all be easily be substituted by the customer for another brand of products, causing a

decreasing in the company’s revenue. (Chaffey, 2009)

Barriers to entry

This force shows how easy or difficult it is for new businesses to enter into the industry. This may

not be much of a threat to Tesco, since it may not be so easy to do because of the high set up cost.

But can pose a huge threat to Tesco.com since it is much easier for businesses to set up a big

warehouse and start up business online, since it is a lot cheaper to run online that in stores. (Chaffey,

2009)

Rivalry amongst existing competitors

This force is the major determinant on how competitive and profitable an industry is. In competitive

industries, firms have to compete aggressively for a market share, and this may result in price wars.

Even though these price wars may seem good to customers because of the low prices, it results in

low profits for businesses such as Tesco.com. (Jurevicius, 2013)

2.3 Demand Analysis Demand analysis is the assessment of the demand for e-commerce services amongst existing and

potential customer segments. (Chaffey, 2009). As time goes by people are opting more for online

shopping because of it many benefits. Over the years Tesco.com has seen an increase in the amount

of customers shopping online.

Statistics shows that in the UK, there are currently 57,075,826 internet users, this makes up 89.9%

of the UK’s population with internet access. (Internet live Stats, 2014). It also shows that 74% of

adults over the age of 34, 90% of young people between the ages 25 to 34 and 40% of people over

the age of 65 shops online in the UK. (Office of National Statistic, 2014). Tesco.com sells to

millions of customers weekly. The demand for online shopping has been increasing for Tesco.com.

This is seen by the increase in their online sales last year by 11% even though there was a decrease

in storefront sales. (BBC, 2014)

7E-Business

89.9

10.1

Internet Usage in the UK

Internet UsersNon-internet Users

Figure 2.2 showing the percentage of the UK that uses the internet

Some of the barriers that would prevent Tesco’s in store customers from shopping online would be

that customers may not like the idea of waiting at home for an hour for goods that they did not

choose themselves, especially with fresh produce. (Ruddick, 2014)

In order to overcome this barrier, Tesco can encourage online customer by reassuring them that

quality goods would be delivered at their door steps.

De-Kare Silver ES Test

This is a test that is done to access the extent to which consumers are likely to purchase a retail

product using the internet. (Chaffey, 2009). The factors according to De-Kare Silver that are

involved in this test are:

Product Characteristics – this access if the product need to be physically touch or tried on

before being bought.

Familiarity and confidence- this access the degree of confidence and familiarity the customer has with the product.

Consumer Attributes- this access consumer behaviour with in terms of access to technology.

Out of a score of 50, products scoring over 20 is considered to have good potential. De Kare-Silver

states that any product scoring over 20 has good potential, since the score for consumer attributes is

likely to increase through time. Given this, he suggests companies such as Tesco will regularly need

to review the score for their products. (Chaffey, 2009)

Products Product Familiarity and Consumer Total

8E-Business

Characteristics (10)

confidence (10) Attributes (30)

Grocery Items 7 9 20 36Fresh Produce 8 4 18 30Frozen Food 8 6 18 32Baby Items 8 9 21 38Books 10 10 25 45DVDs 10 10 25 45Electronics 9 9 20 38Wines 8 8 18 34Furniture 10 10 19 39Music downloads 10 9 22 41Clothing 8 7 16 31Health Services 5 5 15 25

Table 2.1 showing De Kare-Silver product scoring

2.4 SWOT AnalysisSWOT analysis is a relatively simple yet powerful tool that can help organizations such as Tesco, to

analyse their internal resources in terms of strengths and weaknesses and match them against the

external environment in terms of opportunities and threats. (Chaffey, 2009)

Internal ExternalStrength

Currently, Tesco is ranked the third

largest retail store in the world with a

market share of 27.28% which ranks

above all other stores in the UK.

(Chaffey, 2009)

Tesco.com has developed trust

between themselves and their

customers by not compromising on

customer service.

Tesco.com offers home delivery,

within an hour to online customers

Weaknesses

Tesco.com has a high dependant on

the UK and Europe, since shipping

groceries from online purchases to

another country may not be viable.

Online shopping may not be as

convenient for everyone, since it

means waiting at home, for goods that

you did not choose yourself. (Ruddick,

2014)

Fulfilling dot-com orders at retail

stores is highly inefficient and labour-

intensive. (Wilfraat, 2014)

Opportunities Threats

9E-Business

There is a growing online UK market

for music and video.

Increase opportunities in growing

markets such as India and other

international markets

There is an increase in the amount of

people that are buying online, this can

lead to great savings for Tesco,

reducing overall cost.

One of the major threats to Tesco is

competition. Some of Tesco’s

competitors are ASDA, Sainsbury and

Ocado. (Anderson, 2014)

Another threat that Tesco.com face is

the takeover of the industry leader,

Walmart. Even though it is not likely

to happen at this time it is always a

looming treat for Tesco, since they

have all the necessary resources to put

Tesco out of business. (Edwards,

Steiner, 2012)

Table 2.2 showing the SWOT analysis for Tesco

2.5 TOWS MatrixStrengths

Largest retail store in the UK

Has gain customer trust

Pioneer of online shopping

Weaknesses High dependency in

the UK and Europe market

Online shopping is not convenient to all shoppers

Fulfilling dot-com orders at retail stores is highly inefficient and labour-intensive. (Wilfraat, 2014)

Opportunities Growing online

market for music and video

Increase in the opportunities in growing market

Decreased in overall business expense

SO Place more emphasis

on online shopping Focus more on the

growing online market for music and video

WO Seek to expand

Tesco.com, beyond the UK market

Ensure that new markets are properly analysed before venturing out

Open more dedicated dot.com depots

Threats Competition Business Takeover

ST Maintain a higher

value than

WT Offer more incentive

for online customers

10E-Business

competitors Maintain strong

relationship with customers and suppliers

Continue to offer high value at low prices

Table 2.3 showing a TOW Analysis for Tesco

3.0 E-Business Strategy

Tesco uses a mixture of bricks and clicks E-Business strategy. This is a mix of storefront and

warehouse operation in conjunction with online sales (Chaffey, 2009). The four key e-business

strategies that will be looked at for Tesco will be:

3.1 Business ModelTesco business model explains what they do and how they deliver their core purpose for customers.

It is built up around four core retail activities, insight, buy, move and sell. Their key enablers make

them unique and help them to continually do these things better. Using their unrivalled insight to

understand what customers want, Tesco.com buy products and services from suppliers, move them

through there distribution network and sell them to customers. (Tesco, 2014).

Figure 3.1 showing the business model for Tesco.com (Tesco, 2014)

11E-Business

3.2 Revenue ModelTesco’s main source of online revenue is through direct sales. Tesco.com sells their own branded

grocery items along with other non-Tesco branded items. They also sells music and video which has

a high demand and has been bringing in a high amount of profits for the company.

3.3 Getting the right mix brick and clickTesco is not just the largest retailer of good and services in the UK but is also the largest online

retailer in the UK. For Tesco, going online was not a problem, since they had already establish trust

between their customers. When Tesco launched its website in 2000, sales sky rocketed and by year

2005 online sales for the first half of the year were £401 million (Chaffey, 2009). Tesco now allows

customers to shop, anywhere, anytime, in stores and online. With their mobile app, Tesco allows

customers the convenience of shopping online right in the palm of their hands, this means that

customer no longer has to be in front of a computer or even enter a store to place an order. (Tesco,

2012)

3.4 Target market and OVP-tagline‘Every Little Helps.’ has been Tesco’s OVP tagline for quite some time and has been the driving

force for Tesco’s low prices and high quality service. Tesco.com segments its customer according to

wealth and age. They divide customers into rich and poor by using data to personalise its website to

display items geared towards ones’ wealth. (Steiner, 2012).

3.5 Overall StrategyPorter discusses the threats that companies face due to competition in the e-commerce market.

However, from the analysis that was done, one can see that even though suppliers has little

influence on the market, customer still has the most influence, with high bargaining power.

However to achieve continuous growth, Tesco.com can use the following growth strategies mention

by Ansoff and these are:

Market penetration where an existing product is used to achieve growth and increase market

share.

Market development where and an existing product is exposed to a new market.

Product development where a new product or service is created for an already existing

market segment.

12E-Business

Diversification where firm create new businesses offering new products and services for new

market segments

4.0 Electronic Customer Relationship Management (E-CRM)

Customer Relationship Management is very important to Tesco.com. CRM, are strategies that

companies utilizes to win over or retain and get back its customers. (Chaffey, 2009). There are four

marketing activities that CRM incorporates and these are:

Customer selection- Tesco.com selects their new customers through in store marketing along with

advertising which lures their loyalty card customers to try their online shopping experience.

Tesco.com uses their email marketing strategy to send customers promotional emails about goods

and services they sell online. They use the information on loyalty cards to gain information about

their different customer groups and send these emails according to each group buying record.

Customer acquisition- Some of the strategies Tesco.com uses to forms relationship with new

customers is by in store promotion and advertising. Also, by sending personal magazines to their

customers with various coupons. This encourages new customers to try their online shopping.

Customer retention- Tesco uses a ‘commitment-based segmentation’ or loyalty ladder to retain

their customers. (Humby and Hunt, 2003) They use loyalty cards as a means of promotion to the

customers that uses their website. From data collected from these loyalty cards, Tesco is able to

send customer emails encouraging them to purchase again and they do this by using automated

event triggered messaging.

Examples of event triggers used by Tesco.com are:

Trigger event 1: First registers on Tesco’s site (does not buy anything)

Auto-response (AR 1: 2 days after e-mail sent offering phone assistance and £5 discount off first

purchase to encourage trial.

Trigger event 2: Customer makes their first purchase online.

AR1: Order is immediately confirmed

13E-Business

AR2: An e-mail is sent five days after customer makes purchase, with link to an online customer

satisfaction survey asking about quality of service.

AR3: A direct mail offering tips is sent two weeks after first purchase, on how to use the £5

discount on next purchase. This is intended to encourage re-use of website.

AR4: A Monthly e-newsletter is sent to customers with online exclusive offers encouraging cross-

selling.

AR5: Bi-weekly alert with personalised offers for customer.

AR6: After two months - £5 discount for next shop.

AR7: Quarterly mailing of coupons encouraging repeat sales and cross-sales.

Trigger event 3: Customer does not purchase for an extended period

AR1: Dormancy detected – reactivation e-mail with survey of how the customer is finding the

service (to identify any problems) and a £5 incentive.

AR2: A further discount incentive is used in order to encourage continued usage to shop after the

first shop after a break.’ (Chaffey, 2009)

Customer extension- Tesco.com ensures that customers comes back to shop on their site by

offering them discounts on new goods and on goods already bought online, as a way to encourage

them to continue shopping at their website.

5.0 Legal and Ethical Issues

5.1 Information Gathered OnlineThis determines the method by which products can be promoted and sold online. Governments, on

behalf of society, seek to safeguard individuals’ rights to privacy. (Chaffy, 2009) Tesco collects

information from its customers from their club card and when they visit their website, register and

buy products or services, take part in promotions, customer surveys, competition or contact

customer service. (Tesco, 2014) Information that are frequently gathered online are:

Contact Number- this consist of customer’s name, address, telephone number, email address etc.

14E-Business

Profile Information- this is information about a customer’s characteristics that would be used for

segmentation, such as age, date of birth and sex.

Platform Using Information- this is information collected from site users when browsing through

different site. This is information on type of computer, browser and screen resolution used by these

site users.

Behavioural Information (on a single site) - This type of information includes purchase history of

customers

Behavioural information (across multiple sites) - This shows information on how a user accesses

multiple ads across sites.

5.2 Mason and Fletcher Ethical Issues(Mason, 1986) Summarizes the ethical issues that are concerned with personal information into four

categories and these are:

Privacy– what information is held about the individual? Tesco holds personal information

such as, customer’s name, address, email address, credit card information etc. Tesco.com

reassures customers that they will never disclose information collected from them to anyone

outside the Tesco Group except where consent is given (Tesco, 2012)

Accuracy– is the information that was collected accurate? In efforts to avoid fraudulent

activities, information collected by Tesco from their customers must be accurate.

Property– who owns the information and how can ownership be transferred? Data that is

collected by Tesco from the customer belongs to the customer.

Accessibility– who is allowed to access this information, and under which conditions?

Information that is collected from customers can only be accessed by authorized persons,

solely for the purpose in which it was collected.

Fletcher (2001), however, provides an alternative perspective by raising these issues of concern for

both the individual and the marketer. This includes:

Transparency– who is collecting what information and how do they disclose the collection

of data and how it will be used? Data should only be disclosed on a need to know basis.

Security– how is information protected once it has been collected by a company?

15E-Business

Liability– who is responsible if data are abused? Tesco takes full responsibility for

customer’s personal information

5.3 Tesco’s Privacy and Cookies PoliciesData Protection and Privacy Law

Tesco collects a lot of personal information from their customers such as credit card and address

information. The information Tesco collects is securely store at a destination outside of the

European Economic Area. (Tesco, 2014) Failure of Tesco to protect any of the customer’s detail

could result in legal court matters, which would not be good for the company’s reputation.

Intellectual property rights

All music, video that Tesco sells are protected by copyright, trademarks, database and other

intellectual property rights. Royalties are paid to the different owners by Tesco.com for the use of

their property.

Cookies

Tesco.com highly recommends the use of cookies when accessing their website. Cookies collect

information about your browsing and it helps for easier browsing of Tesco’s webpage. For all the

information collected by these cookies, Tesco.com reassures that none will be given to any third

party company for marketing. (Tesco, 2012)

6.0 Conclusion & Recommendation

6.1 ConclusionIn concluding one can say that Tesco’s E-business strategy is an effective one. Which is centred

mainly on customer service. Tesco has shown tremendously growth over the years, starting with just

a small market stall selling grocery items to hundreds of retail outlets and a dot.com store. Tesco

understands that customer service is most important and this as allowed them to work their way up

by gaining customers trust. They moved from selling grocery items to selling just about anything

online.

16E-Business

6.2 RecommendationTesco.com has been doing extremely well. Even with the fall in Tesco’s profit for the last two years,

sales at Tesco.com has been on the raise. My recommendation for Tesco would be, to place higher

emphasis on their online service. They should continue to make their online shopping more

convenient to the all types of customers. We live in a world were technology is taking over and soon

enough in a few years times storefront might be extinct. So Tesco has to start putting things in place

to eventually run totally online.

17E-Business

References

Tesco PLC 2009, ‘History’ Tesco, viewed 16 Feb 2015, (website), http://www.tescoplc.com/index.asp?pageid=11

Tesco PLC 2014, Privacy and Cookie Policy, Tesco, 9 October 2014, viewed 12 March 2015, (website), http://www.tescoplc.com/index.asp?pageid=251

Wulfraat, M 2014, ‘Case study: Tesco’s dot-com U.K. business model and lessons learned’, Canadian Grocer, October 03, 2014, viewed, 16 Feb 2015, (website) http://www.canadiangrocer.com/blog/e-grocery-test-study-tesco%E2%80%99s-dot-com-u-k-business-model-and-lessons-learned-45135

Chaffey, D 2009. E-commerce and E-business Management, Strategy, implementation and Practice. Financial Times Prentice Hall, England

Griffith, R & O’Connell, M, 2011, ‘A fat tax in the UK?’ Institute for Fiscal Studies, 14 October 2004, viewed 16 Feb 2015, (website) http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/5712

Meek, A 2012, Porter’s Five Forces, Concept of Proof, February 10, 2012, viewed 18 Feb 2015, (website), http://andy-meek.blogspot.com/2012/02/porters-5-forces.html

Jurevicius, O 2013, Porter’s Five Forces, Strategic Management Insight, 27 May 2013, viewed 19 Feb 2015, (website) http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/porters-five-forces.html

Internet live Stat, 2014, ‘Internet Users by Country’ Internet live Stat, viewed 26 Feb 2015, (website) http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users-by-country

Ruddick, G 2014, ‘It's no good Tesco being the biggest if it doesn't know how to be the best’, The Telegraph 10 April 2014, viewed 1 March 2015, (website), http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/10758484/Its-no-good-Tesco-being-the-biggest-if-it-doesnt-know-how-to-be-the-best.html

Steiner, R 2012, ‘Tesco to target customers according to their wealth by using their Club card data to personalise its website’, Mail Online, 25 June 2012, viewed 19 march 2015, (website) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2164660/Tesco-target-customers-according-wealth-using-Clubcard-data-personalise-website.html

Office for National Statistics, ‘2014, Internet Access – Households and Individuals 2014, Office for National Statistics 7 August 2014, viewed 10 March 2015, (website) http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/rdit2/internet-access---households-and-individuals/2014/stb-ia-2014.html

18E-Business

Peston R, 2015, A Slower Recovery, BBC News, 27 January 2015, viewed 11 March 2015, (website) http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31000413

Rigby C, 2011, ‘Tesco to extend ‘compelling’ multichannel’, Internet Retailing, 19 April 2011, (website) http://internetretailing.net/2011/04/tesco-to-extend-compelling-multichannel/

BBC, 2014, Tesco announces 6% fall in profits, BBC News, 16 April 2014, viewed 1 April 2015, (website) http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27046105

Tesco, 2012, Tesco.com Privacy and Cookies Policy, Tesco, viewed 12 April 2015, (website) http://www.tesco.com/termsandconditions/privacy.htm

Anderson R, 2014, Tesco Turns Stale as Competition Freshen up New Ideas, BBC News, 23 September 2014, viewed 12 April 2015, (website), http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29310445

Edward A, Steiner R, Tecso signals embarrassing retreat from the US after losing its £1 billion gamble to take on supermarket Wal-Mart, MailOnline, 5 December 2012, viewed 12 April 2015 (website) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2243327/Tesco-signals-embarrassing-retreat-US-losing-1billion-gamble-supermarket-giant-Wal-mart.html

19E-Business

Appendices

Website Evaluation Introduction

The purpose of this document is to evaluate five grocery related websites. One being Tesco.com

along with two other UK sites and two local sites. The four other sites that were evaluated besides

Tesco.com were:

www.Sainsbury.com

www.ASDA.com

www.Trinitrolley.com

www.Trinifood.com

These sites were evaluated depending on the following criteria and were scored out of 10, where 0 -

not available at all, 1 - extremely poorly represented, 10- extremely well represented

1. First Impressions

2. Navigation

3. Content

4. Making Contact

Findings and Analysis

First impressions- from the score sheet, Tesco ranked first with a score of 100, followed by ASDA

and Sainsbury, scoring 83 and 97 respectively. These scores were high because of its attractiveness

which was very inviting to users, their contact details were clearly visible and there is a feeling of

wanting more. Unlike Trinifood that score 54, the home screen layout did not look very inviting.

Navigation- ASDA scored the highest when it came to navigation by 75 points, followed by Tesco

and Sainsbury, both scoring 74. Unlike Trinifood, which ranked last on the evaluation sheet with a

score of 59, the size of their website it did not allow for easy navigation through web pages.

Content- For content, Sainsbury top the rank with a score of 78, followed by Tesco with 69.

Sainsbury had enough content, not too much to overwhelm visitors and not to little leaving them

20E-Business

with questions. Trinitrolley ranked second to last, followed by Trinifood which scored the least

amount when it came to content, because of the size of the site. Trinifood did not have a FAQ page

and unlike the other sites the level of interaction was very low.

Making contact- for this criteria, Tesco ranked first with a score of 48, followed by ASDA and

Sainsbury both gaining a score of 45 and 44 respectively. Tesco has an entire web page of contacts

numbers and forms for every department they had. This gave them the advantage over the other

sites that has contact numbers but very little. Trinifood ranked last again when it came to contact

with a score of 24 because there was one contact number available on the site and they were slow on

responding to messages sent via their form compared to the other sites.

Conclusion

From the total score of the evaluation sheet, Tesco ranked the highest with a score of 291, followed

by Sainsbury with 271, then ASDA with 282, Trinitrolley with 222 and lastly Trinifood with 172.

From the findings and analysis of both the local and the UK website, one can gather that the UK

sites are much better than the local. They are much larger, more user friendly and a lot livelier than

the local websites, when you visit those sites there is a feeling of wanting more. On the other hand,

visiting those local site makes you think twice before shopping, because it is boring, has little

content and because of the site has low popularity, it makes you question the security of the site and

its ability to conduct secure credit card transactions.

21E-Business

PEST Analysis TablePolitical Social

The introduction of “Fat Tax” Increased prices on VAT and other

taxes

Customer now prefer the convenience of shopping online and getting there good delivered directly to their door.

Economic Technological Falling economy can cause an increase

in the amount of goods customer buy online since it is said to be cheaper

More customers are choosing to purchase online

Tesco is providing customers with online mobile app

Table A1 showing an outline of PEST Analysis for Tesco

CC3003ST E-Business: Website  

22E-Business

EvaluationScore each website issue out of 10 where

0 is not available at all, 1 is extremely poorly represented and 10 is extremely

well 

       

  Tesco Sainsbury ASDA Trinitrolley Trinifood 1. FIRST IMPRESSIONS        

URL 10 7 10 10 10

Download time - size of home page 9 8 9 8 6

Look and feel – readability 9 8 8 7 7

Need to download software 10 10 10 10 10

Home page on one screen (above the fold) 10 10 10 4 4

Unique Selling Point (USP) or Value Proposition

10 0 10 10 0

Ability to take action (Key action point – KAP)

8 8 8 6 4

Feeling of wanting more - depth of site 8 6 6 6 4

Contact details 8 8 8 7 6

Credential validation - certifications, associations etc.

10 10 10 6 6

Statement from management 8 8 8 0 1

Total score for section 100 83 97 74 54

2. NAVIGATION

Ease of use 9 9 9 7 7

Site map 10 10 10 9 8

Return to Home Page from any page 10 10 10 8 5

Internal search engine 9 9 9 8 8

Internal links

Broken links 10 10 10 8 8

Text as well as graphic links (ALT tags)

10 10 10 8 8

Navigational links visible 10 10 10 8 8

Opens multiple windows 6 6 7 7 7

Total score for section 74 74 75 63 59

3. CONTENT

23E-Business

Useful information 8 8 8 8 8

Level of interaction 9 8 9 4 4

Use of valuable graphics, animation, sound 8 8 8 2 1

Reviews, testimonials and certifications 5 5 5 0 0

Content in digestible quantity 10 10 7 7 7

Up-to-dateness 9 9 8 7 5

Available in multiple languages 0 0 0 0 0

Accessibility for the disabled 0 2 0 0 0

Terms and conditions 10 10 10 10 10

FAQ’s 10 10 10 10 0

Total score for section 69 70 65 48 35

4. MAKING CONTACT

Email and other details visible 10 10 10 10 7

Response time to enquiries

Automatic email response 10 10 10 6 2

Personal email response 8 6 7 4 0

Use of online forms 10 10 10 9 9

Telephone contact number provided 10 8 8 8 6

Telephone call back offered 0 0 0 0 0

Total score for section 48 44 45 37 24

 

OVERALL TOTAL SCORE 291 271 282 222 172

Table A2 showing the evaluation scores of 5 grocery sites

24E-Business