[Article] Discount stores 'set for 40% of market'

Victor

Believe me, 40% could be the tip of the ice berg.

http://www.thepost.ie/web/DocumentView/did-993234715-pageUrl--2FThe-Newspaper-2FSundays-Paper-2FNews.asp

Discount stores `set for 40% of market'
23/11/03 00:00
By Neil Callanan

Discount stores will eventually control almost 40 per cent of the Irish retail market, a leading property agent has predicted.

Lisney's draft annual report, due to be published later this year, notes that, "in Britain, value-for-money retailers holda36percentshareofthe retail market and are still growing. It is likely that this trend will be repeated here."

As well as grocery stores such as Aldi and Lidl, which have been growing rapidly, companies such as Heatons have been adding two to three stores a year. Heatons now has 29 stores in Ireland.

Other examples include Penney’s, which opened an anchor store at the Blanchardstown town centre, renovated its Mary Street store in Dublin's city centre and recently applied for a €50 million retail development in north Dublin through a subsidiary of its parent company, Primark.

"No matter how prosperous people get, they still want value for money," said Lisney's Hugh Markey.

"There may have been a bit of snobbishness when Lidl and Aldi opened here first, but that's gone now that people have seen the value they're getting."

The two German retailers have been expanding aggressively throughout the Republic.

Between them, they are believed to have captured nearly 10 per cent of the Irish grocery market.

Aldi recently applied to Fingal Co Council to rezone four sites it owns around Swords for possible use as stores.

It also applied to Dublin City Council last week to build a store and 60 apartments on the former Premier Dairies site in Finglas.

In its submission on the new Fingal county development plan, the German retailer asked the local authority to reclassify discount stores as neighbourhood shopping centres, which would make it easier to open more shops in the county.

Lidl has just applied for permission for an 1,859-square metre discount food market in Grange Road, Rathfarnham, even though its permission for a 1,642-square metre store on the old GlaxoSmithKline site is still under appeal to An Bord Pleanala.

Lisney's report says that the immediate outlook for the retail market is positive, with "overall performance up, retailer confidence improving and tenant demand continuing to outstrip supply".

However, it cautions that consumer spending figures next year will depend on interest rates remaining low and the outcome of the budget.

sceptre

I'd like to think that 40% is an underestimation. If Irish consumers ever wake up to the idea of value and cost the entrenched supermarkets are going to take a hammering. Good.


(as an aside I got one of those father and child lamps in lidl last week for 45 euros. I realise it was a special (it's why I got it) but an almost identical lamp is on sale in Argos for 80 and in Homebase for 115 (down from an even more laughable 145). The build quality isn't as good as the three my father has in his house (the base is a little thicker on mine) but his were about 300 nicker each)

Victor

LOL

http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/2094275?view=Eircomnet

Residents seek reversal of planning refusal for new Lidl supermarket
From:The Irish Independent
Friday, 5th December, 2003
Aideen Sheehan Food Correspondent

CONSUMER demand for cheaper groceries has reached such a pitch that residents in Trim got together to petition for a Lidl supermarket to be built in their town.

More than 2,000 signatures have been collected in support of a Lidl store in Trim by a local committee headed by Mags McGivern, which encouraged Meath County Council to change their planning guidelines to permit such developments.

Residents showed strong support for a new discount store, claiming that people were travelling to shop at Lidl stores in Blanchardstown and Mullingar.

Their action came after planning permission was refused for a Lidl store in the town in June, and the German firm has submitted an amended application for a store in the same location.

"It's not a vendetta against any other supermarket, it's just about getting a choice of shops," Mags McGivern said.

The new application appears likely to get the green light as long as the design is suitable.

Sales in Lidl stores nationwide are expected to hit €500m this year, according to 'Checkout' magazine.

The success of Lidl and German rival Aldi has provoked a price war between supermarket chains, and former Dunnes chief Ben Dunne warned recently that they could take as much as 25pc of the market in the next five years if Tesco and Dunnes Stores do not put up more of a fight.

mike65

That story also here-
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129132


Mike.