In the Czech market, there is currently a rarely seen battle between two big players in the field of food sales. Understandably, even in the past years, there was a spirit of competition between the individual chains, but they usually did not comment too much on themselves and took care of their own business.
Rohlík wants to be seen as affordable
Perhaps the current situation, when a lot of attention has been paid to the prices at which the store sells food and other goods, has contributed to the change. The companies Rohlík and Tesco have come to grips with each other.
It all started relatively inconspicuously, when the largest online food retailer Rohlík called on people not to be afraid to shop with him because of higher prices. They are said to be the same or lower than brick-and-mortar stores, which are still his biggest competition. The point is to break the basic prejudices that many people have towards online grocery shopping. Statistics then clearly say that when a person gets used to it, he doesn’t want anything else.
But of course the stone chains, which are still very strong, don’t like that. Thus, Tesco responded to Rohlík’s campaign, and rather harshly. It launched its own campaign called “don’t get drunk on a roll”, where it clearly attacked the online competitor.
They don’t agree on prices
To make matters worse, Tesco chose a really forceful answer when it started comparing various purchases at itself and at Rohlík. The result is that they always come out cheaper in Tesco, even by tens of percent. However, Rohlík defends that individual items are chosen on purpose, when they need to be on sale.
At the same time, Rohlík is really uncomfortable with Tesco’s approach, so he decided to go the legal route. However, the court initially refused to grant him a preliminary injunction that would have prevented Tesco from continuing to compare prices. According to information from the E15 newspaper, Rohlík has now filed a standard lawsuit.
It will be interesting to see how it turns out and whether the court will decide which of the stores is cheaper and whether, for example, Rohlík really sells food at the same or lower prices than its brick-and-mortar competitors.
Foto: Shutterstock
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