An industry insider has revealed that Tesco, the country's leading retailer of Absolutely Everything, is keeping a watchful eye on sales of olympic tickets.
"This could be a revolution in retail, and we'd like to help our customers be part of it," explained Head of Marketing and World Domination, Dr Hans Grabbe. "Getting customers to tell us what they can afford, taking the money off them, and then telling them a month later what we intend to give them: who would believe such a model could be an unmitigated success?"
"We are constantly surprised by the flexibility, attractiveness and outright gullibility of the British Consumer", Dr Grabbe went on, whilst stroking a white cat with his leather-gloved hand. "But even we were surprised when this idea took off. We must take our hats off to Lord Coe, this policy could run and run."
Early details are sketchy, but customers could agree to have their wages paid directly into their Tesco bank account, and immediately withdrawn by the company. Using the Tesco website, they may be able to bid on items that they are keen on, such as bread, cheese, electricity and water. Actual supply of these items would not be guaranteed, but Tesco would let customers know what they would be receiving within 6 weeks.
"If we find a lot of people bidding on the same thing, such as smokey bacon crisps or an Adele CD, we would allocate our stock by lottery. We would try and replace items for people who miss out with something else: tickets to a small bore rifle semi-final, for instance", Dr Grabbe whispered menacingly.
"Obviously, bidding on items from our more expensive 'Finest' range has a greater chance of success than our heavily-subscribed 'Value' items. We're expecting our new Finest mains gas and drinking water to be quite lucrative," chuckled the monocled despot.
Not everyone is happy with the new plan, however. The Consumer's Association described the scheme as 'Very Little Help'.
