Tesco PC prices undercut high-street rivals

Tesco will tomorrow start selling computers off the shelf at its megastore in New Malden.

Three hundred Fujitsu PCs will sell for £800 each in the supermarket trial - 20 per cent less than the equivalent computer would sell for in other high-street stores.

Bryan Taylor, managing director of Fujitsu Computers, said the company is offering the multimedia Pentium II 266MHz PCs at discounted prices in order to promote competitive pricing and provide a better deal for the consumer.

A spokesman for PC World criticised the offer. "It is a limited service. There will be no expert advice at the point of sale, no aftersales support and no delivery. People will continue to come to us because we are experts," he said. "We won't reassess our prices because of Tesco."

A Fujitsu spokeswoman said: "There is an ever-growing market for people buying computers over the Internet, by mail order and outside the regular chain stores, so we believe there is definitely a demand there." She added that there is a large market for second-time buyers who are more interested in price incentives, and insisted Fujitsu will provide aftersales support.

The firm ran a similar pilot scheme last month, selling Siemens Nixdorf computers in its store in Pitsea, Essex, which Tesco claimed was very successful. It said that by the end of this year it will have a good idea if national availability of off-the-shelf PCs will be worthwhile.