ShopAbility’s Peter Huskins reviews Supabarn Canberra, Coles Dee Why and Harris Farm Dee Why.
Supabarn
Mustang Avenue Canberra
Well here we go! – I really was expecting to see something different with this store based on what my FMCG contacts had to say. And I wasn’t disappointed – but in the wrong way!
I visited this store with another experienced industry figure and for the life of us, we could not work out if this store was trying to be a Costco clone, a little bit of Aldi, a failed Campbells Cash and Carry or a reversion back to the old Jewell super stores that popped up in the 90’s. Whatever the real answer, we were left with the view that this store just does not make it on any of those counts.
To be fair, we visited around 5.30pm on a bleak Canberra Thursday evening, dark and cold outside, drizzling with winter rain. The store is located near the airport and we were one of about 6 other Customers in the store, so the tribal feel of a price driven shopping experience just was not there, if it is intended to be at all.
Apart from a woefully inadequate Fresh offer, in width of range, quality and in presentation standards the overall feel was one of a cold barn with long sterile aisles that had an inordinate amount of out of stocks.
A very shallow grocery range complemented the Fresh offer nicely. The ends were up but there was little cut carton action to tempt the moths out of the wallet. Ticketing and POS was reserved to say the least, not shouting a competitive set that embarrassed the majors or congratulating Shoppers for making the right decision to shop there and save! Plenty of own brands, imported branded products that were hard to recognise and a few large pack sizes in certain categories. But again not in the concentration that said what this store stands for.
Oddly General Merchandise is in a separate room off to the right as you walk in the entrance, somewhat like a decommissioned cool room with large doors and warehouse racking – no width or depth of stock at all – half or full shelves of SKU’s that one would think bore no resemblance to their actual AWS…or case size…or SRP unit…or anything else
Pricing appeared sharp, but what Price is adequate if the offer looks and feels inadequate and uncompetitive to a comparable Woolies, Coles or even an IGA for that matter.
In summing up, I hope I don’t appear too negative from the outset, but either this store is under trading by a country mile and management is taking steps to frugally operate the store, or someone made a serious (and costly) mistake when the initial site and design assessment was completed.
Make your own mind up by either visiting the store or having a good look at the accompanying photos. I’ll also revisit and report back again before Xmas in the interests of fair play, maybe we just got them on a bad night…..maybe.
Coles
Dee Why
And here we go again! – now this is more like it, we are at the new Coles Dee Why on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, opened just 3 days before this scribe decided to do a Saturday afternoon visit.
True to form this is another development on the refreshed store theme that we are seeing pop up all over Australia and the one that continues to keep Woolies back peddling, and this is a brand spanking new store. From a Shopper perspective it is a pleasure to shop in and you can see the little improvements that are added as each “new” refreshed store is opened. Store location is a little awkward as it sits one floor above ground level reached via lifts or travelators – this may influence local shoppers as there is another Coles and a Woolworths within 2 minutes, and a new Harris Farm is directly below on the ground floor, time will tell but that does not take away from the ambience and standards shown in the store.
Unlike most new store openings, this one opened without the usual fan fair of 100’s of deep cut specials across the store, but with an elegant catalogue leveraging Masterchef and with a discount off for selected SKU’s and a $ offer off the total purchase value redemption vouchers. Obviously all of the regular Coles weekly specials were up and ready for action so the overall price thrust was still very evident.
For a change, Indian is at the front entrance rather than at the back adjacent to an on-the-run chilled case, and that has pushed Seafood and Meat to the back corner. Cheese and Deli is in the middle of these Depts and to the usual standard for this format and judging by the queues, were doing a roaring trade. The overall Fresh format is sufficiently well known by now so I am not going to comment on that, sufficient to say it is good, very good. One plus was that Coles have finally started to put some cross merchandising in and around the open dairy and meat cases, little barrels of stock neatly ticketed – the whole area still cries out for more, much more but it may be a CODB issue or a decluttered feel that Coles want to continue to drive with the fresh area.
Bakery is located at the back of the store, again combining proprietary Branded bread and in house Bakery. Focus is on driving the baked fresh for you theme.
Each Dept is also fine tuned to the local area and Coles proudly boast of supporting local manufacturers – a boast that they live up to with products sourced from as close as Brookvale (a serious throw with a cricket ball) and Manly Vale (about 2k’s away). They also photos and wording to reflect the beach side site and Customer base, a nice touch to “localise” the store.
The key destination Depts that Coles have targeted such as Health and Beauty did look great, and you are hard pressed to notice that the range has been significantly cut. Entertainment and Paper Shop is also a “new” destination Dept and looked the part and was well frequented by the locals. Extensive GM ranges were also show cased, but in a separate aisle location and not cross merchandised. No clip strips were evident at all.
I am looking forward to seeing one new store with all of the key destination Depts completed and trading .
Coles have also made “promises” for service, out of stocks and PL performance which clearly positions their view of Customer service – and in this store it is all about the Customer, plenty of attention by plenty of knowledgeable and keen staff.
One thing that was out of place for a new store though was the Reduced to Clear tickets on some SKU’s – for a 3 day old store????
So overall another opening of another refreshed store.
Bring it on!!
Harris Farm
Dee Why
Well here it is – the latest Sydney based offering from the Harris family right underneath the new Coles described above, and also right in the middle of a fairly intense fresh food competitive area with two other well established fresh malls close by. Harris Farm also have stores at Manly/ Queenscliff and at Mona Vale so they are a known retail brand to the local Customers.
This is a small store with the usual forced flow through Fresh leading to an extensive Mediterranean range of Grocery products. It feels smaller than the Kings Cross store we reviewed in May, but the shape is also quite different. Again narrow aisles do not facilitate browsing as trolley clashes would annoy rather than excite. Presentation was standard HF fixtures, water fall stock and the fluro product and price tickets = standard fare and why change if it works?
It did not look too much different to other Harris Farm stores apart from what seems to be a more defined Grocery offer at the end of the Fresh run, this may have been more to do with the type and location of the fixtures. Some of the Grocery ranges were normal products you’d find in Woolies and Coles, and the impression I got was that this store leans more toward the normal flow and departmentalisation of the traditional players, albeit without the dominance of the well known Brands, but with a slow creep of other Tier 2 and 3 products.
Overall a neat copy and paste of the regular Harris Farm offer and one that should carve out a solid business base in this area.
