Retail Passion in Northern Queensland

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For readers unfamiliar with the geography of Australia, I serve retailers across regional Queensland – from Gladstone in Central Queensland to Emerald and Mount Isa in Western Queensland up to Cairns in Far North Queensland.  That’s an area of 958,503 square kilometres or 51.7% of the land area of our fine state of Queensland.

But you don’t read my blogs for the geography I’m sure – this is story about successful retailing across a vast and challenging area.  “Hah” you say, “Challenging … with that size trade area retailers would be raking it in!”  Just remember that this same territory contains just 21.7% of Queensland’s population.

Providing goods and services to customers travelling to centres across vast distances is something that retailers in this part of the world take very, very seriously.  If you haven’t heard we just had a little weather event called Tropical Cyclone Debbie up here.  Visiting my customers in some of the worst effected areas I had an inspiring conversation with a store manager who’d just re-opened on generator power.  I don’t have his permission to write this, so take a hint from the image above and imagine the apple being peeled …

JB : “How are things?”

Store Manager: “Really good now, we’ve been able to get in touch with all our staff, we’ve got a generator running the store and Head Office is giving us daily updates.”

JB : “Are your stock levels holding up?”

SM : “Look we are getting customers everything we can.  [excitedly] I’ve just heard that ten pallets of water have landed in town and are on their way out here.  We’ve been getting bits and pieces of stock from other stores and customers have been coming in a couple of times a day just to see what we can offer.  Head Office is working really hard on it too, trucks are coming from North Queensland or via Emerald to re-supply us.”

[Last geography piece, I promise.  Diverting trucks to Emerald adds about 25% in time and distance, many would find it just too hard but this guy was ECSTATIC that his company had gone to those lengths.]

JB : “Sounds great.  How are the customers?”

SM : “Well they’ve done it really tough.  No power, no water and no roads.  Their houses or their work or their neighbours houses are damaged or destroyed.  Now it’s stinking hot and they’ve got to clean up.  I’ve had people come in with nothing and just break down in tears when they can buy some fresh fruit or some milk or something.”

[Yep, this young retailer’s efforts are triggering deep emotional responses over tins of baked beans.]

JB : “And how are you and your team holding up?”

SM : “Look I think we will all sleep well when the power is back on at home.  Right now we are just working so hard to make sure we can offer our customers something, anything to keep them fed and maybe put a smile on their face.  Mate, I got to go and find out about that water, thanks for checking in [exits].”

WOW!

Don’t tell me that passion is dead in retail.  This retailer and their young representative are faced with challenges I can’t even contemplate.  Yet they’ve elevated their passion and customer care to a level that is almost evangelical.  They see their role not as stocking shelves or scanning stock, but as a key part of making their customers lives better.

Do you and your team go to work each day with such a clear vision in mind?

No News on South Cairns Hospital

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Making decisions on your retail store network based on media speculation is like having a crazy cat lady run your pet store – you know it will turn out badly but, well, it just seems much easier than having to think about it yourself.

At present we’re working on the last remaining vacancies at Sugarworld Village, in the Cairns suburb of Edmonton.  There’s been a common theme amongst existing and prospective retailers that they will make a decision on the site when they know more about the South Cairns Hospital site.  Not knowing about such a significant piece of infrastructure, I turned to my trusty friend Google to get some answers.

As it turns out, there has been a hospital proposed for the southern Cairns corridor for over a decade (see The Cairns Post article) and the project was dragged out into the public consciousness recently when the chair of the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service was interviewed in mid 2016.

Retail is a highly dynamic industry and that enables great retailers to continually scan their environment for new opportunities and threats to their business, and adapt accordingly.  This environmental scanning is only one part of an effective business plan though.  Too many retailers rely totally on outside influences (like the cat lady) instead of doing the hard yards and getting to know the internal performance metrics of their particular business.

Problem is with outside influences, it is really hard to track so many issues and stay up-to-date.  For the latest on the status of the Cairns South Hospital, I thought that the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service Strategic Plan 2013 -2017 would be useful.  If you click the link you will see why managing the internal metrics is a much better proposition than relying on media reports.

The great retailers know and manage their metrics intensely whilst keeping a “weather eye” on their surrounding environment.  That means they avoid relying on speculation and rumour but still capture opportunities when they arise.

For more information on Sugarworld Village, see here.

Low Rents Are High Risk

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We are pleased to advise that another new retailer has agreed terms to open a store at Whitsunday Shopping Centre, Cannonvale.  An as-yet undisclosed takeaway food retailer has finalised negotiations on Shop 36, next to Kazza’s Barber Shop.

The retailer was an existing client of ours and had recently closed an underperforming main street store.  Whilst the main street location afforded a budget rental, the lack of foot traffic and poor exposure damaged the turnover of the business to a point that the shop could not continue to trade.

There’s still a long way to go with this deal, we still have to complete the shop fitout design and construction as well as the legals – but there is a theme emerging in this and many other of our current negotiations.

In challenging economic times, focussed retailers are making sure their businesses get in front of customers wherever those customers shop each and every week – their local supermarket.

There’s always a cheaper rent somewhere else – but when it comes to the lifeblood of your business – making sales – give yourself the best opportunity by ensuring there is a strong performing supermarket anchor nearby.