Bunnings

Australian retailing is dominated by very few large organisations, especially Woolworths and Wesfarmers. The former has nothing to do with the UK and US versions and is hugely profitable; the latter started out as a farmer's cooperative, developed into a hardware chain (Bunnings) and has since branched out into supermarkets and so on. Bunnings hardware stores are on a massive scale and they've just opened an Armidale Branch, which Dot and I visited this afternoon to sticky-beak before the official opening on Friday.

We guessed it would be a scaled down version of the ones we've visited in Sydney, Canberra and other places, but it wasn't! In fact, it's probably a little larger than the Belconnen version in Canberra, which Dot loves to visit from time to time. Now, the Canberra store possibly has 100,000or more people living in its catchment, whereas Armidale has 30,000 residents nearby and another 20,000 within an hour's drive. I can't see how the economics stacks up, though the land cost would be cheap, but I suppose the second largest retail chain in the country can easily bear the cost.

To give people some idea of the building's size, it would be double the size of a soccer pitch (see the photos of the site and the subsequent building). The car park is as large again. And the opening this week is revving up to be something special as you can see if you go to: http://www.bunnings.com.au/stores_224_Armidale.aspx . It looks to me larger than anything comparable I've seen in the UK. Judge for yourselves. The building is not only long, but has great depth.

To put things futher in perspective, Plymouth UK, (where some of my readers live) has a population of 250,000. To service that city, a Bunnings store would have to be the size of 20 soccer pitches - 10 for the store and 10 for the car park.

AS