6 February 2008: Tesco Express Plus One

Had a very bizarre dream last night.

I dreamed they (whoever "they" are) were building a new shopping area somewhere that was probably Devon but may also have been partly Texas (you know how such things are when you're dreaming). This shopping area featured, as part of it, a 'Chick-Fil-A' fast food outlet and in my dream I told Gloria this excitedly, knowing she is a fan, to which she replied that she already knew it was there. But the main feature was a reasonable size supermarket, and the sign outside declared it was going to be a "Tesco Express +1".

This meant, apparently, that they would always be an hour behind all the other Tesco's in the area, meaning that if one of the other Tesco's sold out of something, they would *always* have it in stock there for another hour. Additionally, they would also be open an hour later than the other stores each day. They were basing the idea on the "+1" TV channels on UK television, where if you miss Oprah on ITV2 you can watch it an hour later on ITV2+1, minus the adverts (which they haven't been paid to show twice).

What a brilliant plan, I thought, as sleep slowly gave way to waking. I wonder if I could make some money out of this fantastic, mould-breaking marketing idea? Then I remembered that it was very rare for Tesco to sell out of something, and certainly for me to visit it within an hour of them selling out. Then I also remembered a lot of Tesco stores are open 24 hours Monday to Saturday, so that meant these would have to be open 25 hours a day for them to have the same effect. Then I woke up a little more and realised that if they could predict what they were going to sell out of, they'd just order more for the store that was about to sell out rather than sending it to the other store down the road.

So actually the whole thing was a complete load of nonsense.

On the other hand, it did have a Chick-Fil-A next door, which is still a good idea. And it was a fun thought while it lasted.