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Well Karyn W here is the answer to your earlier
comments.
Are you getting the mailers ?
JHTW
-- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 7:03 PM
Subject: RE: [sharechat] Warehouse Xmas Advertising
Dear
John, thank you for your enquiry regarding advertising. In answer the the
specific questions
The TV
commercials are designed for brand awareness and specials that drive foot
traffic.
This
is supported by weekly mailers that have full details of the address and
location of the stores.
It is
not standard for TV to highlight locations.
All advertising is developed and media purchased through
Australian companies and not NZ companies.
regards
Mark Fennell
Hello,
As a Warehouse Shareholder it it disturbing to
read the following comments from an ex New Zealand customer now on the
spot in Australia.
I would be interested to hear The Warehouse's
opinion of Karyn's comments.
Regards,
John Wilkinson
Wellington
New Zealand
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2003 12:11 PM
Subject: [sharechat] Warehouse Xmas Advertising
The Warehouse are running a Xmas ad campaign - but again, they
have failed
to tell anyone where their stores are!
It is customary
amongst the big chains like Harvey Norman, Sleepyhead, DFO,
or any other
large outlet that has its stores in the suburbs, to list the
surburbs
and/or street addresses of its stores in the area when they run a
TV ad
campaign. Some chains even provide street maps, especially if
they
have just opened a new store, so that people know how to get
there.
This means that all the big chains do regional advertising - ie.
Melbourne
will get an ad listing all the Melbourne stores, Sydney will get
one listing
Sydney suburban stores.
I suspect the Warehouse is trying
to run a cheap national ad campaign rather
than regional in order to save
money, but really it is pretty pointless
paying for any ad campaign that
fails to get people in the doors. Unless
you know if there is a
store near to you or not, you are not going to bother
to go out looking
for it.
Another fundamental mistake in understanding the Australian
market - they
cant even get the advertising right. I wonder if they
are using a NZ
advertising company rather than an Australian one, and the
lack of local
knowledge in advertising customs means the Warehouse is
continuing to
misread the market and the way retail is undertaken over
here.
Karyn
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 7:54 PM
Subject: [sharechat] [Re] Tindall got it right in Oz
Brian Gaynor got it right. The
Warehouse should have taken some time to
work out whether or not their
approach of standalone shops would work in
Australia as well as it has in
NZ. If they had, they would have realised
very quickly that its NOT
a successful formula at all. Just like Pizza Hut
- they've bought an
underperforming business, thought they could turn it
around, but have
failed to realise that consumers in Australia just dont
behave like
consumers in NZ.
In Australia people dont want to drive miles just to
go to one shop. There
is no spare real estate in the inner city
areas (and if there were there
would be an apartment building being built
on it!) so big barn like retail
outlets are relegated to the outer
suburbs. It takes about an hour to drive
from the city out to those
suburbs. So who would want to drive that far
just to save a few
bucks on hair shampoo or plastic containers? This is the
first major
difference between NZ and Australia - driving distances and time
dictate
where you shop.
Aussies love to shop at the gigantic malls, which
contain everything that
you could possibly need, are located close enough
to their home and the
major freeways to be able to get to in under 20
minutes. Chadstone in
Melbourne is over 90,000 sq metres of
retail space (with another 40,000 sq m
proposed), Westfield Parramatta is
113,000 sq metres in size. All of these
malls contain four or five
"discount" chain stores that sell the same stuff
as the Warehouse does,
enough to allow you to shop around for the best
price. Why go
anywhere else?
In addition, Coles Myer is hell bent on regaining a
healthy share price, and
have heavily invested in re-establishing KMart
and Target over here as the
discount stores of choice. Both these
stores are located in the big malls,
and spend a fortune on advertising
(think McDonalds!).
But the real nail in the coffin is the presence of
small bargain stores on
the main streets of each and every suburb.
What NZ does not have, but what
Australia specialises in, is the small
locally owned and operated, sole
proprieter shops. Each suburb has a
main shopping strip, full of small
stores. My suburban street strip
contains 5 of these little "$2 type"
stores, and if I need anything I walk
down the road and buy it locally.
They are run mostly by Asian
immigrants, and everything is imported from
Asia and is dead cheap.
If 5 little "Warehouse" type stores can do enough
trade on one street in
one suburb to stay in business, is it any wonder that
a large store miles
out of town is not doing any?
Importers also work on a huge
scale. Usually every weekend the local or
city town hall or
exhibition centre is having an "importers clearance sale"
of books, toys,
DVDs, CDs, manchester, rugs, etc. And for even more choice,
there
are the multitude of "Markets" - where you can also buy pretty much
everything you are looking for as well as pick up your fresh meat and
produce.
But for a personal anecdote - I have been here for 2.5
years. I have seen
Warehouse ads on TV only twice. I have
never seen a Warehouse store in
Melbourne, and I do not have a clue where
any of them are located (they dont
even tell you in the ads!). And I
am alert to the brand! Is the Average
Aussie shopper really going to
go out of their way to track down a store
that they have never heard of,
and drive miles to get there, when what they
want can be bought just down
the road or the next time they are
clothes/supermarket/book shopping in
the mall or market?
I loved the Warehouse when I lived in
NZ. It was always first choice when I
needed to buy something that
it sold. However, here in Australia I have no
desire or need to
visit that type of store, and certainly would not make a
special effort to
drive to it. I shop locally first, then the discount
stores and
Kmart in Chadstone Mall, then Sth Melbourne market (in that
order).
On the other hand, I have seen Glassons and
Michael Hill stores over here.
As has every other Australian who's
ever been in to a shopping mall. Guess
that explains their sales
success :-) I am now watching TNZ with interest
here
...
Karyn
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