Convenience store owners and operators in Australia are preparing to fight hard to stave off the advances of major supermarkets in a land grab for smaller, inner city stores.
Woolworths has thrown down the gauntlet to the corner stores in Sydney with an application to redevelop 302-306 Elizabeth Street in Surry Hills into a two-level convenience-style supermarket complete with an internal coffee shop that can trade 24 hours, seven days a week.
Woolworths has a smaller format store in Sydney’s Woolloomooloo area. It will use that store as a benchmark for its proposed 200-square-metre to 400-square-metre sites.
The grocery giant has enlisted real estate agents to look at similar sites across the country, some of which are leased by convenience stores including the original, United States-based 7-Eleven.
(Source: The Sydney Morning Herald Online )