Après une classe de yoga ou un café ? (document en anglais).

After a yoga class or a coffee? Pop into Tesco

Supermarket chain meets the online shopping challenge as it unveils its 21st century blueprint for future stores - and James Thompson reports on the new space race.

It will house a restaurant, an artisan café, an upmarket bakery, a clothing department and a yoga class. No, this is not a country club in a well-heeled part of the Home Counties.

This is Tesco’s blueprint in Watford for its huge hyper- markets in the 21st century, of which it will provide a sneak preview on Thursday. In a rare display of hype, the website of the Tesco Watford Extra – dubbed a “brand new shopping and leisure destination” - has a clock counting down to the official opening of the huge 80,000sq ft store in Hertfordshire on 12 August.

The grocery giant is taking the radical action to combat the rapid growth in online shopping, which has contributed to weak demand for big-ticket items such as TVs in its biggest shops and required a radical rethink in how to attract shoppers into them.

But Tesco is not alone in having too much space and changing its strategy. Other supermarkets have declared that the “space race” of carpeting over the UK with large stores is over, as most shift their focus to opening smaller stores in high footfall areas.

Indeed, some of the UK’s biggest non-food retailers are also slashing their space to address the fact that shopping online now accounts for more than £1 in every £10 spent.

Of course, the challenge for Tesco – which remains Britain’s biggest and most profitable retailer – is far different to other troubled chains. Furthermore, it has already started replacing much of the space previously allocated for consumer electronics in up to 850 of its biggest shops, including its core superstores and 250-plus hypermarkets, with more food, stationery, homewares and clothing.

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