New Thinking, New Shopping

Thanks for the comments on my earlier post titled “Thais Love Tesco”. Further to the ideas that have been raised, it is probably worth highlighting one important way that the Tesco Lotus juggernaut markets itself to potential customers.

Rather than shirking from the fight in areas where it faces some opposition, the company actively supports informative (and tourist friendly) signposting in many non-urban districts. This photograph is taken from a big map and information billboard at a prominent tourist site in the south. It is sponsored by Tesco Lotus.

Even at such a foreign dominated tourist site, the retail message has an obviously local target audience. Here it is expressed in one of the company’s slogans, “We exert ourselves for you”.

For struggling (and not so struggling) Thai workers is there anything more appealing than a business that makes life a bit easier? It is no wonder that Lotus, and its hypermarket competitors, are so far ahead of the many less efficient and more conservative retailers.