As Amazon Fresh convenience stores open in London, Tesco says it will launch a ‘frictionless’ till-free shop

Tesco will launch a ‘frictionless’ till-free store, the supermarket giant said on Friday as it revealed higher sales and pointed to a return to more “normalised shopping patterns”.

The FTSE 100 chain has since last year trialled items being automatically added to a digital shopping basket as customers pick them up from the shelves at its Welwyn Garden City store at the HQ used by staff.

Tesco boss Ken Murphy today said the firm would extend that to another store in the coming weeks and months.

The move comes at at time when tech giant Amazon is investing in till-free shops, opening five Amazon Fresh convenience stores in the capital so far far this year.

In the 13 weeks to May 29 total UK sales at Tesco, excluding fuel, reached £10 billion.

That was up 0.5% on a like for like basis from last year when the sector saw bumper growth as panic buying boosted sales at the start of the coronavirus crisis. The comparable sales are 9.3% higher than the same period in 2019.

Murphy said that as lockdown eased in the first quarter, there were signs of more traditional trends, with more regular trips and smaller basket sizes than big shops.

Despite pubs and restaurants reopening, Murphy said sales of beer, wines and spirits “stayed remarkably strong”.

But he said the outlook remains uncertain, and profit guidance from April is unchanged.

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