Tesco: a lesson in confusion

So Tesco has taken a tumble and fingers are being pointed at The Big Price Drop and quite right to. Compared to Walmart/Asda's long term Roll Back promotional tool it was a very damp squib. We have been using a Tesco store as our main shop for all of their recent reporting period and can only report that the BPD promotion didn't gain traction with us at all. What it did was just add to the confusion of offer that we were confronted with. We did not take on the underlying message that the targeted products were cheaper. What we need to see is a consistent style on shelf edge labelling that shows the relative price of any particular product per standard volume/weight. The confusion pricing that Tesco uses makes value judgements close to impossible. This makes the BPD look incredibly light weight. As long term Club Card holders the reduction in the customer 'reward' to fun BPD was a bit of an insult. It will be interesting to see what Tesco do this year to resolve this disaster and how the other supermarkets react. One thing that is clear retailers are going to have to work harder than ever to attract customers and then encourage hem to spend.