Amazon’s U.K. grocery business will match prices on hundreds of everyday items to those offered by rival Tesco, the country’s largest supermarket chain.
According to a Bloomberg report Sunday (July 17), produce, meat and fish are among the categories that Amazon will price match.
The company is expanding its business selling groceries in the U.K. under its Amazon Fresh banner, and now has 19 stores, including the first one outside London in the town of Sevenoaks. Amazon Fresh also offers delivery services in London, Leeds, Sheffield, Portsmouth, Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle.
“We’ve matched and locked the price on hundreds of own-label and branded products with Tesco Clubcard,” Amazon.co.uk said. “We’ll keep the price locked for at least four weeks and add new products every week.” It also added that the Tesco price match will be available for online orders only and are not redeemable in Amazon Fresh stores. It will also only be available to Amazon Prime subscribers.
Price-matching has become a common strategy in the U.K.’s competitive groceries market.
Both Tesco and Sainsbury, the country’s second-largest supermarket, match hundreds of prices with Aldi, a German retailer that has grown its presence in the U.K. in recent years.
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Since Amazon Fresh launched in the U.K. in 2016, it has grown both its in-store and delivery business, but is still a long way away from taking anything other than a tiny share of the country’s grocery market. In the U.K., the Big Four grocers — Tesco, Sainsbury, Morrisons and Asda — control about two-thirds of the market altogether.
The latest announcement comes as U.K. shoppers are feeling the pressure of the highest food inflation in 13 years. They are likely to appreciate any move by Amazon and its competitors to keep their grocery bills down.
More about this: UK Shoppers Feel Squeeze as Average Annual Grocery Bill Rises by £380 YoY
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