The Financial Times is reporting that Tesco’s chain of supermarkets is planning on offering free Wifi in its stores across the UK. The move would make Tesco the first UK supermarket to offer the service joining the likes of coffee shops and McDonalds, and will likely see an increase in the increasing trend of price comparison shopping.
Tesco’s chief information officer Mike McNamara said:
You can stand Canute-like and pretend nothing is happening… or you can say it’s happening, and I am going to help it happen.
Mr McNamara added there would probably be a usage limit to prevent downloaders and video streaming from taking advantage of the service.
As a regular traveller to the US where free shop-by-shop WiFi is ubiquitous I completely welcome this move. The benefits of free WiFi are immense and seen over there as a value-add service to help attract customers for a variety of purposes. Although other supermarkets would likely follow suit, there are a definite segment of the population, myself included, who would change their shopping habits for the benefits of free in store WiFi. We spoke to Tesco who have nothing further to add at this time.
Would free Wifi make you more likely to use Tescos ahead of another supermarket?
This post was written by Rob Gordon, an IT geek, gadget lover and blogger. Rob has been using the internets since 1994 when the only streaming video was that coffee pot in Cambridge (rip)….
Follow Rob on Twitter – @robgordon – about.me/robgordonuk
