Having them combined causes hassle anyway - unless you take the aldi approach where every lane allows liquor and all the register employees are over 18 with RSAs.
I’ve been to a few supermarkets that do it - some had special lanes that allowed liquor - meaning some got longer queues while others were empty, and others I’ve had to wait while a supervisor was called down to complete the transaction.
I think it should be allowed - but I can’t see it being the mainstream supermarket model, especially with self serve.
I’d also be all in favour of supermarkets as pharmacists - as long as you maintained strict laws on pharmacist advice. Letting a supermarket absorb the costs of the health service role of pharmacists - while giving the supermarkets the advantage of being more than a one stop shop.
But it’s highly unnecessary. You have Priceline, Discount Chemist and Chemist Warehouse providing the service. Why would you want the supermarkets putting them out of business and concentrating more retail business with two main players in Australia? We need more competition in this country, not less.
The actual law that prevents supermarkets opening chemists is that every chemist must be owned by a pharmacist. Coles and Woolies are owned by millions of shareholders. Not all of them are pharmacists.
Chemist Warehouse is a chain of stores - but each is owned by a single pharmacist or group of pharmacists.
You can also not open up a chemist within a 2.8km radius of an existing chemist. You can buy a chemist and move it but not open up a new chemist. This has been the law since the 70s. When several chemists exist within close proximity then those chemists were already there when the regulation came into force.
Its worth noting though that the restriction is heavily supported by the pharmacy guild - the government have considered how to remove it but have faced stiff opposition
And this is a pretty powerful guild. If the government was to deregulate chemists the pharmacists would start petitions that let (older) customers know that their local chemist would disappear and they would need to get to a supermarket (that may be further away). It’s a good argument for those with limited mobility. The chemist at Clovelly shuts down and you need to travel 4 kilometres to the Coles or Woolworths at Randwick.
Remember that the nature of a chemist is that you often talk to the pharmacist when you pick up your medication. This gives this industry a lot of individual contact with its customers. You may never have one-on-one with your real estate agent but you will certainly come onto regular contact with the pharmacist. This enables chemists to launch a pretty powerful political campaign.
Does Turnbull or Shorten want to take this industry on? Do they want the backlash when chemists close down?
The advantage, of course, is that the supermarkets could buy in bulk and achieve economies of scale that would drop prices. Many supermarkets are also open until 10pm, midnight or even 24 hours a day. Not many chemists have such long hours.
and we see an industry decide to go down the route of scaremongering rather than trying to change their offering to compete. From what I understand the guild isn’t that supportive of the “chemist warehouse” concept either.
Except 5pm closes limits the ability of teeneagers/uni students to do part time work after hours. I couldn’t imagine supermarkets closing at 5pm. If I’m ever home on a Friday or Saturday night that’s when I will do my grocery shopping as it’s so much easier when the store is basically empty and I can’t tolerate the craziness of supermarkets on the weekend especially a Sunday.
On another note - I had a look at the new Chadstone on the weekend and it was very impressive. The new food court is huge and similar style to that of the Emporium. Every food place trying to look very prestigious even places like Maccas, Sumo Salad and Boost Juice are the most fancy stores of theirs I’ve ever seen. Although there are sooo man new food places in there I do wonder how a lot of those will sustain themselves on non-busy days as it seems like an overload of food options now. Weekends they would be fine but during the week it seems like it would be a big overload. Overall the new areas of the shopping centre are impressive and looks very modern. Lots of fancy restaurants opening at the cinemas too.
A nearby Coles at Wynnum Plaza in Brisbane is getting a makeover a the moment. So far, a new bakery, deli area and different layout. The most notable change is they seem to have removed the highest shelf making the store look a lot brighter and bigger. All new trolleys as well (yeh!) Grand opening is apparently next Wednesday.
Used new software for Coles self checkouts today. Much cleaner interface and did seem somewhat easier to use - although I didn’t actually find the old one hard.
