Tesco Rapidly Expanding New Online Marketplace

Just two months after its launch, Tesco has over doubled the number of SKUs on its new online marketplace.

When it went live at the beginning of June, the site listed 9,000 products from third-party sellers across various categories, including garden & DIY, home accessories, toys, sports & leisure, petcare, greeting cards, baby & toddler, furniture, and beers, cider & spirits. Tesco stated at the time that once the marketplace was at full scale, it would be a “one-stop shop for everything customers need”.

According to trade magazine The Grocer, the range on the supermarket’s marketplace now totals more than 20,000. The report noted that the marketplace has close to doubled the total number of SKUs on Tesco.com, which offered around 28,000 products before its arrival.

Peter Filcek, Tesco’s Marketplace Director, told The Grocer that it was “really excited about expanding Marketplace over the next few months to give customers even more choice, and we look forward to working with new sellers to introduce further categories and brands to Marketplace”.

Tesco has previously stated that it is not trying to replicate Amazon. Chief Executive Ken Murphy said in June: “The primary focus of marketplace is to build out and extend the range of food, food-related and home products available to customers – so to be very clear, we are not trying to be Amazon.

"We are not trying to be all things to all people".

He noted that the grocer was making “all of those niche products that you won’t necessarily find on our shop shelves” available to shoppers.

Amazon has over 500 million products listed on its marketplace.

NamNews Implications:

• Bearing in mind there are no limits to online portfolio size…
• (i.e. Amazon 500m+)
• …one wonders how far Tesco plans to go…
• …and to what extent suppliers should attempt to keep up.
• (for a fair share of the action and cost)
• For sure, it is not even the end of the beginning…