Smaller suburban centres could be in Big W firing line as discounter announces first of 30 store closures   

Big W is tight-lipped about the next batch of stores to get the axe. But could a map of the three closures announced yesterday provide a big hint?

news.com.au July 19, 2019



Big W’s announcement of the first three of 30 stores it will shutter was no big surprise — analysts have for some time been expecting the Woolworths-owned discount retailer to slim its store numbers.   

But what was a surprise was where those three stores were. And a quick look at a map of the doomed shops could give a huge hint as to the next Big W stores on the chopping block.

In April, Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci said 30 of Big W’s 180 stores were at risk. In recent years, the discounter has become the problem child of the group continuing to lose millions, $110 million last year, as customers froth over Kmart or head to fast-fashion powerhouses H&M and Zara.

Yesterday Big W announced loss-making stores in Auburn, Fairfield and Chullora in Sydney’s west would close for good in January.   


Other Big Ws have quietly shut up shop, such as the Broken Hill branch that closed last year after 32 years in the desert town.

Big W is remaining tight-lipped about the locations of the 27 further dead shops trading and has said “each store is being reviewed individually”.

However, yesterday’s announcement has dropped a possible heavy hint, says QUT retail watcher, Associate Professor Gary Mortimer.

He should know; before he was an academic, Dr Mortimer was the sales manager at Big W Chullora, which is on the hit list.

“When I was with Big W in the 1990s they had 89 stores, and now they have more than 180.



“The initial talk around these closures was it would be many of the regional stores. But yesterday’s announcement means you can’t discount suburban stores also being in that mix.”


The former Big W store in Broken Hill closed in 2018.

MAPPING THE AXED STORES
Charting the stores to be closed on a map, and bringing up other Big W stores, reveals some of the potential reasons behind the closure.

Firstly, all three stores are in proximity of one another. It was likely they were competing for some of the same customers, cannibalising sales. Their loss will create a kind of Bermuda triangle of lost Big W stores in Sydney’s middle western ring.

They share other similarities, too. Fairfield, Chullora and Auburn are relatively minor residential, retail and transport hubs. Their shopping centres are modest, and Chullora doesn’t even have a railway station.

Indeed, look further, and you’ll see they are surrounded by much busier suburbs, many of them with large shopping centres that contain, yup, a Big W.



The three Big W stores to close are connected by red lines, a Bermuda triangle of lost Big Ws. They are surrounded by other larger Big W stores (ringed) in busier suburbs and shopping

THE DEPARTMENT STORE DANGER ZONE

“The closing stores are sitting between major centres that have profitable Big Ws,” said Dr Mortimer.

“When you have big Westfield complexes close by, there is a pull towards those centres and away from smaller centres.

“In Underwood, in Brisbane, there is a Big W but the pull is to Westfield Garden City which is much bigger and where there is also a Big W.”

Underwood and Garden City are 10km apart, around the same distance as between Fairfield and Liverpool.

A look at where Big W stores are cited across the major cities shows a number dangerously close to another bigger store. These could be vulnerable.

In Sydney, Rockdale’s Big W is just 5km from the Big W at Westfield Hurstville. Big W Winston Hills, a suburb with no train station, is a short hop to Big W Blacktown, one of the busiest hubs in Sydney’s rail network.

The Top Ryde City shopping centre in Sydney’s north has already lost its Myer, which did nothing like the trade of its store at the Macquarie Centre 5km away. Could Big W leave too?

In Newcastle, the Big W in Mt Hutton is minutes away from the Big W in the huge Charlestown Square.

Melbourne is less blessed with Big Ws, nonetheless the Box Hill branch is well within the orbit of the store within Westfield Doncaster.

greggerypeccary wrote on Jul 19^th, 2019 at 11:25am:



Are we now!  H W Y FU KI NO   NUM Nuts