Urbis Think Tank
Urbis Retailer Monitor March 2011
The trend continues. Products for consumers’ domestic lives are in. Conspicuous consumption is out.
Recent results are continuing an ongoing theme. Products that focus on consumers’ domestic lives are in, while those that are used for conspicuous consumption are soft. In the latest period, this is reflected in strong results for NZ-owned homewares company, Briscoe’s, and auto services company SuperCheap Auto. In contrast, the weakness was in the clothing sector, with Colorado Group entering administration, and Noni B and Pumpkin Patch showing particularly weak results, while David Jones and Hallenstein Glasson were steady.
Of course, one of the biggest stories was the failure of REDgroup (Borders and Angus & Robertson). While one interpretation of this failure is the impact of online book retailing, it appears that management failure is to blame in this case. ABS Retail sales data suggests that the book category is quite strong (it is another domestic item), and other booksellers are continuing to trade successfully despite the online competition.