A retail strategy involving longer opening hours and lower prices is expected to boost sales in the Western Hungarian outlets of British giant Tesco. The move has elicited criticism from the Austrian supermarket chain Billa, however, because of fears that Austrian consumers will cross the border to shop in Tesco.

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The Tesco outlets are able to be significantly larger than Billa equivalents because of the Hungarian law and the giant’s sixteenth store was advertised in Austria when it opened recently.


Billa has raised the issue with local authorities, fearing that they cannot compete fairly with Tesco because of the differences in retail law between Austria and Hungary

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