I dont have a good feeling about this. Coles being so strong and Woolworths suddenly being a lot less prominent in the market.
I dont see the same quality of goods at woolworths and the prices arent competitive.
Woolworth's sale of Masters and petrol stations
tonyjzx on 24/10/2016 - 22:04
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How many years before Bunnings turned a profit… it was quite a few and they didnt have much competition…
Aldo has growing sales and there is a potential Lidl will enter the Aus market.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/german-discounter-supe…Couple this with a growing local food scene and an increase in online food sales from other suppliers.
Wow is still operating it's food arm it should keep Coles on their toes.
Hasn't Aldo left UFC?
Yes, he changed his name to Aldi and came to Oz, sneaky bugger;)
Dan Murphy's will keep Woolies around
I think my local Woolworths is a test site for streamlining (cost cutting) and becoming more Aldi like. They are hot-relaunching with a different configuration and have reduced the number of products. Schweppes Agrum and relatively common products have been removed due to being poor performers. There is also a move to mass self service and not many staff.
I did read an opinion that Masters was finally starting to make a slight turn around after management had done lots of rearrangement and restructuring of their stores, essentially, just before Masters decided to sell up, which I think was in a way sort of forced because Lowes pulled out of the venture and left Woolworths holding the bag, who I guess didn't either have the money to keep going or didn't want to invest more money to try. I mean, I think Woolworths can really only blame themselves for the fall of Masters, from the get go they were fighting a losing battle and needed to be really innovative and fresh, and I guess just sort of cocked it up. I think it's fair to say that. Anyway, that debate has been done to death, so I won't elaborate on what we all probably already know anyway.
I really don't think Woolworths will fold completely, but it might be that they scale back their Big W business and really tighten the screws and try and knuckle down on their food and alcohol businesses. I can definitely see some Big W's being shed mainly just because it's sort of the same situation with what happened with Masters, and Big W not being super competitive with Target and K Mart, but then that being said WF is doing the same thing with Target at the moment. To be honest I'm surprised that Big W and Target have lasted as long as they have. So many sections of Big W that I just wonder why they're still operating, for instance hardware in my local Big W seems almost completely token. The brands are unheard of, the range is crap and its tucked away on the far sides of the stores. It was that way before Masters too, why not just get rid of hardware altogether? It's a bit like gaming at Target. The only time I ever bothered to buy anything gaming related at Target was when it was dirt cheap, because they were flogging it all off because no one was buying any of it in the first place.