Industry News

 jmhargreaves  November 14, 2019 Convenience retailers, Other FMCG Retailers Woolworths taking on convenience retailers The supermarket giant is trialling a convenience-style cashless shop targeted at city workers. The 50 metre square shop will have very limited stock and will focus on ready-to-go breakfasts, lunches, snacks and drinks, putting it squarely up against convenience retailers. The store is named Metro Go Strawberry Hills and is located in Sydney’s Surry Hills at 407 Elizabeth Street. Jeff Rogut, CEO of the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) said he was pleased with the innovation in the industry. “Good to see Woolworths trialling this now ‘frictionless’ store format,” said Rogut. AACS members visited similar stores in China in 2018 and the USA in October 2019 as part of its overseas study tour. “There is no doubt about their efficiency and popularity in the right areas,” Rogut said. “We evaluated a ‘nano’ store concept format this year in…

Ulrich Seeman, Diebold Nixdorf 11/13/2019 CSNews In 1964, the first self-service gas pumps were introduced to American consumers. Twenty years later, the proliferation of credit cards and advances in technology allowed customers to pay for their gas right at the pump.  Store owners were initially reluctant to adopt this innovation because they feared in-store purchases would decline if customers didn’t need to come inside to pay for gas. The opposite proved to be true: sales went up because the ability to pay at the pump shortened lines in-store, which made for a better shopping experience. Fast forward another 30 years, and fuel and convenience stores are having a renaissance. Convenience and local availability are key priorities for the modern consumer, and large retailers are creating small-format stores to adapt to this trend. These smaller pop-up shops speak to the broader direction of the industry, which is inspired by the convenience…

James Fernyhough Nov 16, 2019 AFR China’s biggest carmaker, SAIC, has criticised Australia’s “unique” lack of policy incentives for the electric car industry, saying the policy black hole is preventing a healthy market for environmentally friendly vehicles from developing. SAIC, which owns the formerly British-owned car brand MG, plans to launch an MG brand electric car in Australia in 2020. SAIC’s Pure Electric SUV concept car debuted at the 2018 Beijing Auto Show.  But Matt Lei, deputy managing director of the company’s international business department, said the lack of incentives for consumers to buy electric cars means the market is guaranteed to be small. “The Australian market is quite unique,” he said. “Basically, there is no policy to incentivise electric vehicles or new energy vehicles. “In Europe they have very strict emission regulation. They are gradually lifting the bars to further prevent emissions. That’s why we’ve seen a significant reduction…

MATTHEW DENHOLM NOVEMBER 17, 2019 The Australian A massive hike in trucking taxes, being secretly considered by state and federal transport ministers, could send firms broke and increase the cost of groceries and other goods, the industry warns. Transport industry associ­ations have told The Australian they are aware of plans to increase the Road User Charge, which already adds 25.8c to the cost of every litre of diesel used by heavy trucks. The Queensland Trucking Association said it understood the hike, ending a three-year freeze on RUC rises, to be as much as 11.8 per cent over three years when combined with increases in the roads component of state registration charges. “When you’re looking at companies on margins of about 4c in the dollar, an increase like this could well send a number of businesses to the wall,” QTA chief executive Gary Mahon said. “It is three times the CPI…

The decline of the bakery in France has led to a gap in the market that is being filled by the baguette machine – but what’s it like to get your bread from a machine? Milo Boyd 10 NOV 2019 Daily Mail The French national institution of the boulangerie has fallen on hard times – and the high-tech solution has split a country. The installation of vending machines to distribute the famous baguettes is symbolic of the ‘tragic’ death of French bakeries, some fear. As with high street businesses across the world, changing shopping habits powered by online retailers and out of town supermarkets have left independent bakeries in France desperate for customers. As a result many have closed, dooming villages and towns to life without easy-to-access delicious fresh bread. Rushing in to fill the gap in the market they’ve left is an invention seemingly at odds with the long…

NICK EVANS NOVEMBER 11, 2019 The Australian The expected explosion in electric vehicles will do little to dent demand for petroleum, according to BHP’s oil and gas boss Geraldine Slattery, with demand for oil not expected to peak until at least 2040. Ms Slattery was to tell analysts on a briefing call on Monday that BHP sees the electrification of the global transport sector as a key theme for its petroleum business, but does not expect the growing use of electric vehicles to impact on supply and demand balance for the commodity for several decades. She said that even the progressive decarbonisation of the global economy should not affect BHP’s view of its own business, flagging earnings margins of more than 60 per cent for BHP’s suite of oil and gas projects. “In a decarbonising world, deepwater oil and advantaged gas close to established infrastructure can offer competitive returns for…