Woolies-owned accepts Caltex fleet cards and gift cards, yet Caltex-owned doesn’t accept Woolies gift cards, regardless of whether they’re branded as Caltex Woolworths or not. Messy!
I wonder what they will do with the stations with the tiny box shaped “supermarket”, they will end up being pretty small compared to the usual BP shops.
Not looking good for those sites (known as Tier 3 or “paypoints”) as I can’t imagine they would fit into BP’s merchandise plans. Their locations are usually very good, however. Prime real estate in most cases.
Some non-Woolies Caltex dont accept Caltex fleet cards either - pain in the arse when you need 98 fuel and have to use a StarCard
Nine are reporting BP are looking at bringing their model from the UK (where BP partners with M&S) to Australia
Yeah, I came across one travelling in the North-West. Would take Starcards but not the gift cards which was weird. I think they were using one of those manual click-clack machines.
I wouldnt be surprised if Woolworths have to part with a number of servos to satisfy competition concerns - I’d imagine that Caltex may buy them
But by the same token, some are in terrible locations with little or no development opportunities (as a service station) - redevelopment (other then a servo) will be expensive
United would be a good fit for the Tier 3’s. They seem to have a lot of sites similar in size.
If BP is forced to onsell some petrol stations it may be a great opportunity for 7-Eleven to buy them, given it does not have any stores in South Australia after all these years.
That was done on a gentleman’s agreement between the Withers and Barlow families and Shahin owned Peregrine Corporation to not compete in SA as OTR was seen as a strong brand and 7-Eleven would have a hard time trying to break into the market here. At the time 7-Eleven stated they had no intentions to grow their network, looking to focus on the east coast.
This has since changed with 7-Eleven launching in WA. It would be good to see 7-Eleven enter SA (even if they acquired separately the Woolworths sites). It’s hard to market a fuel card to those who travel between WA and the east coast as it can’t be used inbetween.
Woolworths to sell BigW next? Would they sell one of their alcohol brands?
Dan Murphy’s and BWS would be profitable I think, unlike BIGW, so it would be odd if they their liquor stores.
Selling Big W in its current state in the current market would make no sense - there would be no buyer with better prospects of turning it around, so they wouldn’t make much money on a sale.
Big W just need to find the product line up that makes them viable - I think they have too many grocery and party lines - with not enough clothing (men’s at least) and homewares.
I personally find I rarely need to go beyond Target - with cheap furniture shaped objects about the only thing I’ll end up in Kmart for. The Big W near me is the hardest of the three to get to, so I rarely go there - but if they had a product line up that made them the best of Target, Kmart and a splash of Officeworks - then it would be worth the trip.
Agree that Big W seems to have lost its way. I used to love going in there as a kid but over the years it’s increasingly been a shop that I haven’t bothered looking at. The home entertainment and book sections aren’t as good as they used to be.
Doesn’t help that they can’t settle on a single approach to their advertising - each ad that plays on TV seems to be different to the last, and they’re all terrible.
Oh, and discontinuing involvement with Woolworths/Everyday rewards was silly, considering the number of stores you can use FlyBuys with, not least of which Target and Kmart, their direct competition!
Not bloody likely.
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Woolies CEO has recently said that Big W is worthless in its current state, so there is no point selling it.
Regarding Liquor, I heard rumours they may spin off Liquor in the future, but nothing about selling it off. I would think they’d sell ALH before they sell the rest of the liquor division.
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Oh, and discontinuing involvement with Woolworths/Everyday rewards was silly, considering the number of stores you can use FlyBuys with, not least of which Target and Kmart, their direct competition! [/quote]
Woolworths really stuffed up their loyalty program in a big way and I’m quite sure this is a big factor in their revenue losses.
The Tassie Frequent Shopper Club still seems to be going strong after all these years yet there’s still people who call for it to swap to the mainland system despite it being crap and hated. It does still cause problems for people who come down here and try to use their cards despite being told they won’t work.
the product positioning of Big W confuses me. they had a nice little niche spot (people perceived it above K-mart in quality and price and below Target) and they have decided to go head to head with K-mart but they can’t do that with the current product mix.
same as the crossover between K-mart and Target. Target was almost a higher class version of K-mart - better quality stock, name brands and prices to match. now they have muddied this and have (according to the advertising) given me no reason to pay more to go to Target
Its a combination of factors why Big W are the way they are now - they were the ‘premier’ discount department store for a long time (it wasnt hard when Target and Kmart had effectively become a rabble), but Woolworths got complacent about it while Kmart in particular quietly set about transforming itself
Woolworths will have to battle through this one - closing it like they have with Masters isnt really an option
Would it work if Big W positioned themselves as “brands for less”?
Dyson. For Less.
Bonds. For Less
Phillips. For Less.
Oil of Olay. For Less.
At the moment Big W can’t work out whether it’s Myer, K Mart, Target or the middle section of shite that they stock in Aldi.
Problem with that strategy would be margin. EDLP works better with non branded products so the retailer can still make some decent margin.