The trend in the UK has been for major retailers like Sainsburys and Tesco to move into small format situations in the high street. Now, in the US, we hear courtesy of Convenience Store News that Walmart is again playing with small format locations. Coles is playing in this space in Australia but not yet on the same scale as in the UK or, apparently, in the US.
Some of these businesses overseas are rapidly redefining the town and city high street landscape. We need to consider this in our planning for our own newsagency businesses.
If we think Coles and Woolworths are competitors with our newsagencies today we’ve seen nothing yet. The will follow the UK model to claim more of the high street.
In the high street and online, Coles and Woolworths are chasing our businesses and other independently owned small retail businesses. It sucks but it’s happening. The ACCC and successive governments have failed to challenge the supermarket duopoly.
The position we do not want to be in is complaining about what they have done after the event.
Officeworks appears to be trialling the same thing. There is a smaller format (about 500m2) Officeworks in the Sydney CBD. It carries only the more popular stationery lines and is designed to compete with stationers and newsagencies who sell stationery.