I was surprised at the Officeworks Back to School outpost in a shopping centre in Melbourne a couple of days ago. Maybe I have missed but I do not recall seeing Officeworks running outposts in centres where they do not have shops.
Their pitch looks strong even though newsagents have better deals. Their price guarantee pitch is clever, worded I suspect to limit the opportunity of it being called on that much.
I’d be interested to know if others have seen Officeworks setup outposts in other shopping centres.
I wonder has any retailer that sells back to school stuff like the newsagent or Big W etc challenged centre management on leasing space to officeworks and then letting them direct foot traffic OUT of the Centre with their sign?
It would be an interesting line of complaint to follow Niall. I have a couple of people I’ll suggest it to.
In some cases Officeworks actually have stores located as part of major shopping centers (e.g. the new Officeworks as part of the upgrade at Westfield Garden City) so in those cases it would be harder to argue against Officeworks running promos elsewhere in the centre.
Similar outposts seen at Northland and Greensborough in Melbourne. The Greensborough pop-up is backed by a mega-giant promotion poster (the size of three storeys) in the centre’s atrium.
I’m not against it where Officeworks is in a centre.
1 stop back to school shop? Why dont they stock text books?