“Big Tesco” as us locals refer to it, have a large tree in there entrance at the Clifton Retail Park superstore.
They invite you to take a tag from it, with a child’s name and age on it, so that you can buy an extra gift, and donate it to the specified child. Is this not just a covert way of up selling your spend though?
Here’s a statement from Terry, a local shopkeeper forced to close, with a personal view on this seemingly charitable act from Tesco.
“As child poverty has undoubtedly increased this year, there’s obviously going to be tough times ahead for parents suffering the economic fallout of the covid crisis. Marcus Rashford has repeatedly hit headlines as he campaigns for continuing free school meals over holiday time, and to be fair, he’s had a great deal of support for this, and many people agree that this year, the school meal extention is welcome initiative for many kids and families. But there’s another side to this, Tesco have traded all the way through this pandemic, and made very healthy profits. Smaller businesses were forced to shut, not once but twice, and many self employed people fell through the gaps of support packages, if they were freelance, self employed, or they offered home /mobile services. Whereas I’m not saying Tesco don’t do their bit for charity, as I’m sure they do, is this not a bit of a plot to encourage extra spending from customers, after huge trading profits, and smaller local businesses go under and face bankruptcy, and mobile freelancers face the prospect of claiming Universal Credit? Personally, I think it’s a bit distasteful profiting (more, from buying that extra gift) after they’ve had such a bumper year.
Perhaps it would be a more community spirited move to encourage their shoppers to buy local, spend at smaller outlets, maybe give “community” credit vouchers instead of tesco points that could be spent in small shops, then redeemed by Tesco? If Rushi Sunak can organise ‘eat out to help out’ for the hospitality industry, why can’t there be a “shop small, shop local’ scheme of a similar sentiment? This voucher could even be earned with a minimum spend, so it’s viable for Tesco to administrate, or simply ask small shops to sign up like the eat out scheme.
If every little helps, which is a phrase they like to use, why not “help” the little stores/independent traders detrimentally hit the most at this time of year? Whilst it’s important to think of others this Christmas, (and I honestly don’t begrudge a kid getting a gift by the way) the more local traders are put out of business, the more profit the big supermarkets make, year on year. Is this all part of bigger plan to kill off independent trading altogether? It seems somewhat non-sensical that smaller shops that could easily manage covid safety are mandated to close, yet thousands of customers from miles around converge under one roof at larger stores selling non essentials, items that other folk are prohibited from selling. It’s all very back to front”.
Has Terry got a point?
