In the UK, home-wares retailer The Range is set to open its first supermarket-based store within a Tesco Extra in Yardley, timed to coincide with the run-up to Christmas. The move reflects a trend of non-grocery brands embedding within supermarket spaces to capture shopper footfall and cross-sell. The Scottish Sun
The new outlet brings The Range’s home-furnishing, decoration and lifestyle products into the heart of Tesco’s grocery environment, enabling shoppers to pick up home-wares while doing their food shop. Alex Simpkin, CEO of The Range’s parent CDS Superstores (which also owns Wilko and Homebase), described the move as part of a “revitalisation effort for local economies and customer convenience.” The Scottish Sun
This follows earlier partnerships by Tesco with other lifestyle brands (for example bakery chains and toy stores), demonstrating a broader shift in supermarkets from purely food retail to “one-stop” shopping destinations offering services and non-food categories. The extension of Tesco’s Clubcard deals (such as the “Christmas Savers” bonus) is part of the ecosystem that seeks to lock in customer loyalty across multiple categories. The Scottish Sun
Why this matters.
Supermarkets are under pressure: food inflation, cost increases, changing consumer habits and online competition all present headwinds. By adding non-food formats inside their stores, supermarkets like Tesco aim to increase dwell time, basket size and the number of reasons a customer visits. This can help offset slower growth in traditional grocery categories.
What to watch.
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How customers respond to the in-store home-wares format: will they stay longer, buy more cross-category items, or is there no uplift?
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Whether Tesco replicates the model in other stores and whether competitors follow suit.
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How the non-food revenue contribution evolves relative to grocery sales, and whether that helps overall margins given different cost dynamics.