From the Archive: Woolworths large stores
‘From the Archive’ is the regular column that revisits some of the more interesting retail stories covered over the past 30 years by Glynn Davis for a variety of publications.
This period covers many seismic structural changes in the industry including the emergence of the internet. Alongside the actual stories Glynn will be adding commentary around each of the pieces that will seek to put the articles into context with today’s landscape.
From Retail Week (early 1999)
Kingfisher Group had been spurned at the altar by Asda, which jettisoned the proposed merger with the UK conglomerate and instead agreed a takeover bid from US giant Walmart.
Subscribe to TRBIn the aftermath a deflated Sir Geoffrey Mulcahy, CEO of Kingfisher, continued with the mission to create an out-of-town megastore selling food and general merchandise. But without the food element of the grocery chain, Kingfisher was instead relying on a mix of external partners – initially Peacocks and Burger King – to sit alongside ranges from its own brands comprising Woolworths, Comet, Superdrug and B&Q. The first outlet opened in Edinburgh by which time the name Big W has been conceived.
The chain operated from 1999 until 2004 during which time it had grown to 21 stores, which included some outlets that stocked food following a deal with food wholesaler Booker. But the writing was effectively on the wall for Big W in 2000 when Kingfisher decided to focus exclusively on the DIY and Electrical markets (B&Q and Comet) and spin off the general merchandise brands including Big W into a separate company Woolworths.
It was problematic because the chain had then lost almost all of its major suppliers and although it soldiered on for a period after a renaming to Woolworths Big W its days were numbered. The concept would ultimately bite the dust as some stores were sold off and the remaining went down when the overall Woolies business went bust.
Maybe the concept had been flawed from the start because when my piece was written ahead of the first store opening there were reservations about its prospect among commentators. Richard Hyman, chairman of Verdict Research – a prominent contributor of retail insights at the time, suggested: “Large formats do not have a very encouraging history in the UK. I wonder what it will have to offer for people to drop their existing shops.”
We now know it didn’t have much to offer. As something of a post-script to this story Peacocks also hit the buffers but on a more positive note Sir Ian Cheshire took over as CEO of Kingfisher a few years later in 2008 (having run various divisions at the group) and breathed new life into the business after Mulcahy retired disappointed that the career-crowning Asda deal had been stolen from his grasp.
