Retailer slams supermarket duopoly
12:00a.m. 27th August 2008
IGA owner Rob Outridge pictured in a 2005 photo when the store was celebrating 100 years. Photo: Barry Leddicoat/151379
A Coast retailer has described the two major supermarkets as “monsters” and called for limits to their power.
As Coles and Woolworths bid for 6am-to-midnight, seven-day trading on the Gold Coast, Rob Outridge, who operates four IGA supermarkets with two here on the Sunshine Coast, said competing with the two was like “David versus Goliath on steroids with a machine gun”.
The Gold Coast application would see up to six supermarkets along a tourist strip east of the local highway, from the Spit to Coolangatta, operate under the extended hours, a move which some groups said would kill small business.
Mr Outridge said the duopoly had too much market control already and was not welcome anywhere including the Sunshine Coast.
“It’s not good capitalism,” he said.
“I think a lot of the small grocers and businesses would suffer.”
He said the two giants already had 80% market share.
“What more can they want?
“If you can’t (already) get what you want on the Gold Coast 24 hours a day there’s something wrong.
“This is a grab for more market share at the expense of small market traders.”
Mr Outridge said the duopoly power was “enormous” and actually reduced consumer choice through ever-increasing volumes of generic products.
“They are forcing the customer to purchase their product only,” he said.
“They fill the shelves with generics and cut down on other lines, reducing choice.
“They have far too much power in this country. We have to take a stand.
“They are monsters – it’s just another grab.”
Mr Outridge, a fourth-generation independent retailer, said if his children chose a career in retailing, they’d have to work for Woolworths or Coles.
“I want them to have choice.
“I remember my grandfather taking me by the hand down the street in Murwillumbah past a Woolworths. He pointed and said to me ‘if you let them run uninhibited we will all be working for them’.
“I’m for the little guy – I really feel for them.”
A Woolworths spokesman said a recent Australian Competition and Consumers Association report found no undue influence on grocery prices or monopolisation by the two major supermarket chains.
“And we open early and close late across many areas of Australia, with still-thriving small businesses all round us,” he said.
Coles referred the Daily to the National Retailers Association (NRA) for comment.
NRA spokesman Gary Black said the current opening hours on the Gold Coast strip did not allow “adequate service”.
“We are talking about a premier Australian tourist destination,” he said.
“If you get 100,000 visitors, logically a business can respond by keeping doors open but not in Queensland - we have to slam doors shut in their faces because of restrictive trading hours.”
The Queensland Council of Unions said the extended hours would impact heavily on workers’ lives.
But Mr Black said it would not impact on teenagers, who were prohibited from working the extreme early and late shifts.
The commission hearing on the NRA’s application has been set down for November 25 to 27.
> Mixed response on Sunday trading
Recent Comments
Maleny is a small town and it is very inconvenient to not be able to buy even bread or milk in town after 5 during the week. Now this might not be a good example of the power of Woolies or Coles, but they do have a big enough monopoly on groceries and politicians as it is.
On the Sunny Coast if you desperately need something after hours there are 24 hour IGAs and 7/11s open to cater for that need. I don't think that there will be much that anybody can do about stopping these mega chains from getting what they what, in this wonderful era - money definitely talks.
Customers make their own choices with their hard-earned dollars. If customers want more variety, they will shop elsewhere. The giants have become large because customers have chosen to shop there.
Four generations ago, the giants operated fewer stores between them, than Mr Outridge himself operates.
IGA just want to remain in there own sector and run at higher profits without being challenged in the hours wollies/coles are closed... and who is the bully?
I also look at the bigger picture of 24 hour trading which does increase the overall prices of groceries etc. I have had the conveinence of shopping 24 hours a day when working 72 hours a week on shift work. It meant I did not have to get up and lose vital sleep during the day and I could shop on my way home.My job had 12 hour shifts and it demanded that I was rested and alert as I had other people's lives and mine literally in my two hands.
For a long time one party has professed it is the champion of small business all the while looking the other way while they are squeezed out.
The other party who professes to be about people before profits is quickly eroding their credibility in that sphere as well.
We know the duopoly carefully manicures just who gets to be a supplier and where their products are placed if they get the privelege of some shelf space.
The real problem is the ever increasing profit levels having to be maintained at the expense of the consumers, as the OECD reports point out the increasing gap that has been widening in Australian retail profits.
One again the farmers have over the past ten years been screwed down by the very party that professes to stand by them; getting the same farm gate pricing or less whist the corporate profits and inflation/fuel costs soar.
You only have to look at the recent advertising campaign launched by the duopoly, spending millions in self-promoting image building, to tell every one just how good they are to the consumer.
(gotta love all those happy farmer faces plastered all over the screen).
In a nutshell our major parties make the rules, and our major parties receive cash donations from corporations who have a self interest in preserving their monopolies. (no confict of interests there ?)
Airlines, banks, communications, retailers and worst of all the fuel refiners are all operating without or with severly limited competition.
How much is it costing the average punter across a lifetime ?
Yes our super is in these companies but I would contend that over a lifetime we're spending way more than we get back on our fantastic super returns.
A lions share of these profits go offshore and we are getting less of the take.
Yes people are worse off under the current government and got a whole lot worse off under the previous government.
Rob Outridge has a very valid argument,
but it's a small piece of a larger jigsaw puzzle.
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