Category: Retail Distribution

Tesco plc is a UK-based international grocery and general merchandising retail chain. It is the largest British retailer by both global sales and domestic market share, is the world’s third-largest grocery retailer, and is the fourth-largest retailer behind Wal-Mart of the United States, Carrefour of France, and The Home Depot of the United States.

Originally specialising in food, it has diversified into areas such as discount clothes, consumer electronics, consumer financial services, selling and renting DVDs, compact discs and music downloads, internet service consumer telecoms and most recently budget software.

ASDA is a chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom offering food, clothing and general merchandise products. It became a subsidiary of the American retail giant Wal-Mart in 1999, and is currently the second largest chain in the UK after Tesco.

ASDA is Wal-Mart’s largest overseas subsidiary, accounting for almost half of the company’s international sales. As of January 2006, there were 21 ASDA/Wal-Mart Supercentres, 243 ASDA superstores, 37 ASDA supermarkets (including town centres), five ASDA Living stores, 10 George clothing stores and 24 depots (distribution centres). ASDA has 150,000 employees, who it refers to as “colleagues” (90,000 part-time, 60,000 full-time).

Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd, commonly known as Sainsbury’s, a chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. The group also has interests in property and banking. The group has an estate worth about £6 billion (October 2006).

For much of the twentieth century Sainsbury’s was the market leader in the UK supermarket sector. However in 1995 it lost its place as the UK’s largest grocer to Tesco and in 2003 was pushed into third by ASDA. The company’s fortunes have improved since the launch of a recovery programme by CEO Justin King in 2004. Despite predictions that Sainsbury’s would regain second position and a narrowing of ASDA’s lead in recent months, the latest figures released by Taylor Nelson Sofres in October 2006 showed Sainsbury’s losing share slightly, from 15.9% to 15.7% compared to ASDA’s 16.6%. Tesco’s share was 31.4% and Morrisons’ 11.1%.

Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc (LSE: MRW) is the fourth largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. The company is usually referred to as Morrisons and it is part of the FTSE 100 Index of companies.

Morrisons is now one of just four supermarket chains that dominate the full-size superstore market in the United Kingdom. In descending order of size the other three are Tesco, ASDA (owned by Wal-Mart), and Sainsbury’s. Morrisons strategy is based on doing the basics efficiently, selling predominantly food at low prices, and doing so only from large stores.

* A block on any new take-overs by Tesco or other major supermarkets.
* Stronger planning policies to protect local shops and High Streets.
* A legally binding supermarket code of practice to ensure that all farmers, at home and overseas, are treated fairly.
* An independent watchdog with teeth to protect the interests of consumers, farmers and small retailers.
* Rules to protect workers’ rights at home and overseas.

Source: www.tescopoly.org

Watsons your personal store is under the A.S Watson Group umbrella, which is a member of the world renowned Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Limited owned by the tycoon Li Ka-shing, which has major interests in ports & related services, telecommunications, property & hotels, retail and energy, infrastructure, investments and others with businesses in 54 countries and employs over 98,000 staff.

Each week, millions of customers in thirteen markets shop at Watsons Your Personal Store. Asia’s leading health & beauty chain dates back to 1828, when the Canton Dispensary was first founded as a clinic to provide free medical aid to the poor in Canton, China.

Boots the English chemist, opened its new stores outside UK, in the Arabian Gulf and specifically in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, also they will be having stores in Kuwait.

On 31 July 2006, Boots Group PLC and Alliance Unichem PLC merged to create Alliance Boots – Europe’s leading pharmacy-led health and beauty group.

Boots The Chemists is part of Alliance Boots plc. As the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) leading Health and Beauty retailer, we have approximately 1,500 stores in the UK and Irish Republic where they serve around 8 million customers every week. They develop and sell their own-brand health and beauty products, a number of which are leaders in their respective markets.