Tesco is to cease 24 hour operations at 76 of its stores starting March.
The retailer, currently Britain’s largest, has around 400 stores open 24 hours a day. In March and April a number of these will close their doors between midnight and 6AM, including two outlets in London.
“We‘re always thinking about how to serve our customers better in each of our stores and with the growth of online grocery shopping, these stores saw very few customers during the night,” said Tony Hoggett, Retail Director at Tesco.
Several store managers admitted that they did not generate enough commerce in those 6 hours to justify staying open all night. In many cases, being open 24 hours a day was financially damaging. Online shopping growth, meanwhile, is continuing in leaps and bounds, to the extent that companies such as Amazon have become competition for old school grocers.
“It makes much more sense for colleagues at those stores to focus on replenishing the shelves inst6ead and making sure they‘re fully stocked when they open their doors at 6AM,” Hoggett continued.
“We‘ll continue to make changes in store in ways that will make shopping at Tesco a better e4xperience for our customers, at the times they want to shop.”
CEO Dave Lewis has been attempting to cut costs at the supermarket chain since the 2014 accounting scandal which revealed that Tesco had mislead investors on profits.
