The Economist takes an interesting look at American culture vis a vis British retailer Tesco's analysis of American consumers. Tesco plans to open "Fresh & Easy" stores in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Southern California:
The company has spent years gathering detailed information on every aspect of American life. Most retailers would think they had done their homework after the usual focus groups and surveys, but Tesco went much further. Researchers, including a small cohort of top executives, spent two weeks living with 60 American families. They poked around in their kitchen cupboards, watched them cook and followed them as they shopped. “They'd been studying the city for about a year before they came to us,” says Scott Motley, who works for the city of Phoenix, which with the Greater Phoenix Economic Council helped Tesco find places to put stores.Even the stores seem part of a grander plan to keep gathering data. Take the patchwork of districts where Tesco plans to build some of the first. In central Phoenix it has chosen some of the poorest parts of town. Families living within a mile of one store have a median annual income of just $37,500 (against about $44,000 for America as a whole). In nearby Chandler, a middle-class area, it will be building its stores within reach of the city's richest inhabitants. There, median incomes run to about $93,000. This torrent of comparative data is central to the plan: Tesco is setting out to change the way Americans shop and eat.