Major Aussie retailers finally embrace online shopping

Sarah Michael news.com.au May 30, 2012 AFTER holding out in the “retail wars”, major Australian stores are finally committing to online shopping, spending millions to ramp up their offerings. Target is the latest to expand its online range, with owner Wesfarmers today announcing plans to spend $30 to $40 million restructuring the business, including providing 60,000 products on the web. Other changes include reducing delivery costs to ensure lower ticket prices, investing in website functionality and driving 21 per cent month-on-month online sales growth in 2012. The move follows Myer’s recent proposal to spend $20 to $30 million to boost internet sales, and a pledge by David Jones to spend a “large component” of its projected $70 to $80 million capital expenditure on online retail. Commonwealth Bank senior retail analyst Andrew McLennan said major Australian retailers had lost sales by leaving their online drive so late. Smaller retailers had been…

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Coles concentrates on costs as CEO warns on consumer spending

Blair Speedy The Australian May 31, 2012 COLES managing director Ian McLeod has warned that consumer spending is set to remain subdued for some time, prompting the supermarket giant to focus on lowering costs and squeezing returns from its existing stores to drive earnings growth. “We’ve still got a cautious consumer out there; I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon,” Mr McLeod said yesterday during parent company Wesfarmers’ annual strategy presentation for investors in Sydney. “If we focus on combating our rising costs . . . we’ll deliver more value and we’ll satisfy that need that they’re looking for in terms of broader value.” Mr McLeod said Coles had “significantly lost its way” when Wesfarmers acquired it in 2007, with poor customer service, value and fresh-food quality, and investors were sceptical the new management team could save it. But improvements in all these areas, including a $1.6…

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7-Eleven Finds Niche in Indonesia

May 30, 2012 CSNews JAKARTA, Indonesia — 7-Eleven stores are fast becoming the new hot spots in Indonesia, filling a void in an area with few outdoor recreation spaces and limited mobility. In addition to blending convenience store offerings with inexpensive ready-made food and seating, 7-Eleven stores have turned into nighttime gathering spots with live bands and Wi-Fi, according The New York Times. The stores have taken over as the spot for young people to gather, hang out and gossip. Ten years ago, the place to be were street-side food stalls called warung; however, rapid economic growth has come with social change, the newspaper added. “People still like to talk about their lives, they like to gossip,” said Henri Honoris, president director of Modern Putra, 7-Eleven’s Indonesian franchisee. “Now we give them an alternative. It’s a warung with better quality.” Sixty-five percent of the franchise’s customers are younger than 30,…

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Nice N Easy’s Mini-Grocery Pulls In Big Sales

Linda Lisanti Apr 19, 2012 CSNews BREWERTON, N.Y. — It’s only been six months since Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes opened its first mini-grocery store in Brewerton, and already the community has taken to the store as if they’ve been doing their grocery shopping there for years. The mini-grocery, which opened its doors on Oct. 25 — replacing an existing Nice N Easy convenience store on the site off Interstate 81 — was built at the request of town officials who approached the chain to see if they could help fill the need in the community for a grocery store. Both the closest supermarket and Walmart are four miles away. The 6,750-square-foot store is Nice N Easy’s largest location, and it will serve as a prototype for future builds in select communities that have the need for such a store, like Brewerton did. On a recent visit to upstate New…

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Tesco boss warns locals of limits to private labels

Eli Greenblat June 1, 2012 The Age ONE of the world’s most successful supermarket bosses, Sir Terry Leahy, who took the British chain Tesco from a struggling, third-ranked competitor in its home market to one of the biggest grocers in the world, has a message for Woolworths and Coles: there is a limit to how much private label goods can dominate their shelves. Sir Terry knows what he is talking about. Tesco helped drive the proliferation of private labels in Britain’s supermarkets, and when Woolworths revealed its new strategy last year to match a resurgent Coles and improve its own bottom line, it named Tesco as the world’s leading supermarket when it came to house brand penetration as a proportion of total sales. ”Like so many strategies it depends on how you execute,” Sir Terry told BusinessDay from London. ”The UK consumer has always trusted private label, as much as…

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Work whenever I want? Yes please

June 1, 2012 – 11:16AM The Age Taking clock-watching out of the equation can produce happier employees. Imagine being employed by a company that lets you work whenever you want. You can work a one-hour week or a 50-hour week. You can take a 10-minute lunch or a 10-hour lunch. You can turn up at 7am or you can rock up at 3pm. You can work whatever hours you like … and still get paid a full-time wage. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it actually exists. It was a trend that was started in 2004 by Best Buy, a retail chain in the US. The organisation introduced a system in their head office of 3000 workers called ROWE – Results Only Work Environment. In essence, it meant one thing: employees were judged on their performance, not their presence. The result was a 35 per cent increase in…

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