Tesco has pulled the plug on its online Wine By The Case service, blaming a lack of profitability.
Tesco will shut the standalone website, which launched in 2005, on 8 October, claiming the decision was “part of Tesco’s work to move towards a simpler online experience for customers” and that there was “no route to profitability”.
The move puts 14 employees out of a job, though Tesco stressed they would be “supported to find alternative roles within the business wherever possible”.
The retailer would be “focusing our wine offer to customers in store and online through our grocery home shopping service rather than a standalone wine by the case website” said Tesco online MD Adrian Letts.
Wine By The Case’s closure is the latest in a line of Tesco standalone operations that have been slashed in the fight to streamline the mult’s business.
It closed Tesco Direct, its long-standing but loss-making non-food website, in May, which put 500 jobs in the firing line.
In 2015, it ditched the popular Tesco Wine Community forum and website, through which customers could access tastings, wine fairs and other events.
In an opinion piece for The Grocer at the time of Tesco Direct’s closure, NBK Retail founder Natalie Berg suggested there was “no time for costly distractions when Amazon is on your doorstep”, predicting Tesco Direct would not be “the last of Dave Lewis’ and Charles Wilson’s strategic cull as they continue to tighten Tesco’s focus on food by offloading non-core assets”.
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