Covent Garden. This new format was designed for convenience , providing a full food range for office workers, shoppers and people on their way home. The format was an immediate success and Tesco increased investment in town centre Metros and in another new format, 'Express' stores. The Express stores (developed in partnership with Esso) combined petrol stations with retail sites . They aimed to supply passing motorists with cheap, quality fuel and customers in the local community with the convenience of a wide-range of top-quality food items. By December 2005,a total of 550 Express stores had been opened .
Some new superstores were still being opened in areas where Tesco had previously been underrepresented, but these were now proceeding only after careful consultation with local people, with greater efforts made to make sure that the architecture and landscaping were in sympathy with the surrounding area . Where superstores were totally unfeasible, smaller 'Compact' versions were built in their place or existing stores were refurbished and re-planned. The smaller stores had become a viable option following improvements in distribution and stock control. The introduction of composite warehousing4 reduced the total number of lorries on the road and improved the overall efficiency of in-bound logistics.
In 1998 Tesco opened a new flagship store at Pitsea in Essex; it was the prototype for the hypermarket 'Tesco Extra' format, vast stores offering the most comprehensive range of products and services seen in the UK under one roof. With restrictions on Sunday shopping long since eased and ever longer opening hours, Pitsea became one of the first Tesco stores to offer 24 hour opening.
At the other end of the scale, Tesco could see big opportunities in the convenience market. The deal to buy 1,292 T&S Stores for £519m - announced in October 2002 - signaled the start of its plans to expand its Express format. In January 2004, Tesco also acquired 45 convenience shops from Adminstore Limited, a chain of convenience shops located mainly in Central London, where it had experienced difficulty establishing the Express format due to a lack of suitable sites. Following their purchase, sales at the Cullens, Harts and Europa have more than doubled.
Today, Tesco continues to experiment with new store formats. In May 2005, the company announced intentions to drive its non-food sales growth by opening two trial non-food stores. Named Tesco Homeplus, and covering everything from clothes to televisions, the stores could provide a means for Tesco to extend its non-food offer more widely (only 20 per cent of the population have access to a Tesco Extra store).