Tesco has launched Tesco Marketplace, offering around 9,000 products from third-party sellers. This move affects online shoppers across the country, particularly in areas such as DIY, toys, gardening, and pet care.
Peter Filcek, Marketplace Director at Tesco, said: “We were looking at customer searches on our websites and we found things that we just don’t carry in Tesco [stores] or online, and so that prompted a stream of thinking around what we could do to open up that range, to give customers what they’re looking for because they were genuinely looking for all sorts of things.”
Mr. Filcek added: “We want to go big enough that we are a destination. But not so big that [shoppers] end up tripping over irrelevant stuff and it becomes a problem and gets in their way.”
The supermarket stated that the addition of a marketplace will make Tesco.com “a one-stop shop for everything customers need.”
The platform has launched with 9,000 products listed across DIY, garden, homeware, pet care, and toys. It features 17 sellers, including Diegeo, Silentnight, Tefal, Tommee Tippee, and Online Home Shop, the UK’s largest grocer has confirmed.
Tesco, which competes with Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, and others, previously had its own online marketplace.
In 2006, the retailer launched Tesco Direct, a service offering non-food items on its website. Tesco Direct operated until 2018, when it ceased trading due to profitability issues.
Mr. Filcek discussed the new marketplace with the Grocer, stating: “We’re now able to meet really quantified customer demand in a way that we could never mobilise a retail supply chain to do. So we’ll go where the customers tell us to go, where the opportunities are.”
