The year 1919, Old London Town
and Jack Cohen has set up his first market stall selling cheap fruit and veg
That market stall would expand to become the biggest supermarket chain in the UK:
Tesco. A bit of a British institution.
Today I'm at a very special Tesco Express that would really confuse Jack Cohen
It has no tills, no cash, no payments
it's a queue-less supermarket, it's a till-less supermarket, a bit like Amazon Fresh.
Let's see how it goes
From the outside this Tesco Express looks pretty standard
but inside instead of tills you're met with big glass barriers
which open with a swipe of a QR code.
Then you simply shop like normal before walking straight through those glass barriers
with no scanning packing or most importantly queuing,
Subscribers might remember that we covered the first till-less store opening back in March
that was an Amazon Fresh.
People were fairly skeptical that they'd be able to expand
but they've since added six new stores
Can Tesco compete?
So coming into the store immediately it's a big airy space, really wide corridor:
it's great if you're a wheelchair user
A really wide gate if you're a wheelchair user as well
Feels like a nice big quite open store and then when you look at the high ceilings
you find oh there's a load of cameras.
Just like in amazon secret cameras at the top
apparently there's some weight sensors.
Tt's all using artificial intelligence and it's constantly tracking me
and making sure that what I put in my bag gets added to my receipt at the end
So let's give something a try.
Actually I am going to get some... oh that looks fancy. Some pink beetroot pesto
I'm gonna add that to my bag
And mr camera there will have seen me do that and decided that I'm gonna buy it
and when I walk out, I won't have to pay for it and it'll be added to my club card payment.
Taking a look around it just felt like a normal inner city Tesco Express
everything from Cheerios to cheese.
Tt had a decent Free From section, a bakery section, a baking section
and well the prices weren't bad.
They even had my favorite shelf: the reduced to clear.
Pretty impressive considering they've only been open a week.
In Amazon Fresh I found the system wasn't foolproof:
I picked up a red onion moved it round the store,
put it back in the wrong place picked it up again and I didn't get charged for it
Let's see if that happens this time.
Red onion... one red onion in the bag let's see how that goes.
The security guard has gone around the corner...
Put it in there and then I'll come back and get it and see what happens
After chatting to the staff they suggested I try out their prized possession
Apparently this is the first one in the country outside of the Costa HQ
which can do iced drinks.
An ice cappuccino...none of those...continue.
Is that real?
I can't...the coffee machine has a speaker that plays the sounds of Costa
It's like something from after the apocalypse for people who miss going to buy coffee
It's pretty good
I give the creepy robot barista eight out of ten
Red onion back in the bag, got my coffee, I've got my shopping
I'm gonna leave...
The door is opened and again I am out with not a single payment
Thank you thanks guys
First time I did that it felt really bad like I was shoplifting
but whoa did I get over that quickly this time
I just feel like because it's a Tesco it just feels a little bit normal
a little bit less like you're in Silicon Valley like the Amazon one
I'm just waiting for the receipt to come through on my phone
to see if everything is accurate to see whether I got anything past sensors
whether I've been charged anything extra and no nasty surprises come through
Wish me luck.
I'm back from the shops, I've got my shopping:
I bet you're wondering how it compared to Amazon.
Now if you watched the last amazon video you might remember that
I tried to steal a red onion by moving it around the shop and then picking it up
and slipping into my bag.
the machines didn't pick up on the red onion, I got it for free.
This time though, same tactics not so lucky: I had to pay for this red onion
In fact that's another win for Tesco: the receipt came a lot quicker
than from Amazon.
Really good if you're a little bit worried about,
you know, whether you were charged the right amount.
As you can see the receipt is perfect - it doesn't miss anything I added to my bag
nor does it add anything extra.
However the Amazon receipt had a nifty little button to press if there was a problem.
I'd have liked to have seen that here.
Probably the biggest difference was price and range.
So Tesco had normal Tesco Express prices: a little bit cheaper than Amazon
and lots of discounts too
It probably had a bigger range as well: not just in the different kinds of products
but the price points between them.
Amazon's shop as well probably had more extras, you know.
A bigger bakery, more varieties of coffee...
It was also a little bit kind of posher feeling and that's reflected in the prices
I spoke to a few staff in the Tesco store who weren't part of the press team
and they were quite candid.
They said there'd been good feedback from the customers,
a few confusions but it made the lunch rush really easy.
A lot of the same concerns you might have had about Amazon apply to the Tesco store
So if you rely on cash it's a no-go.
If you're worried about data the privacy policy is pointed to at the Tesco store
but it's a little bit unclear what you're getting into.
So what do you think would you like to see one of these shops open up in your area?
Or do you prefer that 1919 Jack Cohen market stall kind of vibe.
I'd love to know what you think!
Stop the presses!
The weekend after I visited Tesco Get Go, disaster struck!
A hack across all of Tesco's systems: the clubcard, the online ordering; it was all out!
Now I have a question for Tesco: what happened to your Get-Go stores
and what will happen in the event of internet outage, cyber attack or even cyber warfare.
For now when that happens, I can just go down Co-op and pay cash for some milk
but in the event of the apocalypse and we've all switched to till-less,
I don't want to drink my tea black!
When we put our concerns to Tesco they said...
While I enjoy this IPA that I didn't have to take through a checkout,
why not watch my review of the Amazon Fresh store (linked below)
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Mmm, it's pretty good