Size matters to new breed of mega-retailers

Expansion is the main game in Irish retailing, as domestic players vie with their combative European rivals for space in a booming, but crowded market.

In a year that has already seen the € 450 million sale of the Superquinn chain and the opening of a shopping mecca at Dundrum, south Dublin, a new breed of mega-retailer is set to enter the scene in the wake of the Government move to lift the cap on the size of superstores.

Each of these developments tells its own story about a sector that weathered the economic slowdown better than most and whose growth consistently outpaces all others in the euro zone. Consumers are spending less money in pubs and more in shops. In addition, retailers will receive a further boost next year as money from the special savings scheme flows into the economy.

But in a grown-up market, the competitive pressures are huge. Senator Feargal Quinn's decision to sell Superquinn to a private consortium was said to have been borne of repeated frustration being outbid on sites his group wanted to acquire for expansion.

Figures from Taylor Nelson Sofres indicate that Superquinn's share of the grocery business held steady at 8.5 per cent in the year to the end of February. Despite growing competition from the German discounters Aldi and Lidl and branded convenience stores, the same figures show that supermarket titans such as Dunnes Stores and Tesco grew their share.

Dunnes' market was up half a percentage point to 22.4 per cent, ensuring that the family-owned group retains a leading position in the retail game. Yet it is Tesco that is blazing the trail. With annual sales last year of more than € 2 billion and profits estimated at around € 140 million, the chain added 0.9 percentage points on its market share to 25.7 per cent.

Crucial to the Tesco story are new product lines in clothing and CDs and 24-hour opening in many stores. Tesco's scale and buying power means that such trends will have side effects in other markets. The same can be said of the Dundrum centre, a massive development pitched at the high end of the market.

Major British retailers such as Arcadia, already present in the Irish scene, were not invited to Dundrum as the developers went upmarket to woo new British operators such as House of Frasier and Harvey Nichols.

If Zara's arrival on Henry Street seemed to confirm the street's revival, the biggest domestic players in the north city have upped their game considerably. Clery's is following Roches Stores with a long-overdue revamp.

Outside Dublin, attention centres on the new Mahon Point development in Cork and on a high-end project underway at Newbridge, Co Kildare. Led by developer Sean Mulryan, the White Water complex will be the first such centre to capitalise on the rapid expansion of the Dublin commuter belt when it opens next spring. With the cap on the size of retail outlets gone, it is open to superstore operators to develop non-food outlets in any of the eight locations designated as "gateway" towns by the Government. Attention currently centres on Ikea, which has been earmarked for a development to tie in with the Ballymun regeneration project in north Dublin.

One also to watch will be DIY chain B&Q, which is known to favour larger outlets. Its owner Kingfisher, the world's third-largest home improvement retailer, already has four stores in Ireland. The company declared plans to have 10 Irish outlets by 2006 when it entered the market in 2003.