RETAIL TRADE IN UNITED STATES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27037, 12 May 1953, Page 7

RETAIL TRADE IN UNITED STATES

DRAMATIC CHANGES NOTED GROWTH OF THE “ SUPERMARKETS ” The retail trade in the United States has undergone a dramatic change since the war, and, says the "Australian Financial Review,” it makes Australian observers wonder whether a somewhat similar, though less sudden, change will occur in the retail pattern in Australia in the next decade. The rapid introduction of self-service techniques is the main reason for the Change in the United States. This was prompted not only by the savings in labour costs at a time when all costs were rising, but by growing evidence that most customers like self-service, whether in some sections of the city department store or in the suburban food store. Another important reason for the change is the enormous growth of fringecity shopping districts. In the United States today it is becoming less and less necessary to visit the nearest big city to shop. To the Australian observer the most striking difference is the absence oi the separate grocers, greengrocers, delicatessens. and butchers’ shops in most suburbs and towns. Those stores have had to give way to the self-service supermarkets. Just after the war, combined supermarket sales in the United States totalled abput 5,000,000,000 dollars a year. In 1952 supermarket sales totalled 14,100,000,000 dollars—a rise of 9,100,000,000 dollars on 1946, and a rise of 1,700,000,000 dollars on 1951, In 1946 there were 9000 supermarkets in the United States, now there are 16,500. And over the last few years the supermarkets have been reaching beyond food into business normally done by the department store, the variety store, such as Woolworths, and the drug store (a combination pharmacy, newsagent, confectionery store, and snack bar). Wide Range In 1952, nearly all supermarkets sold patent medicines and women’s beauty and toilet preparations, three-quarters of them sold kitchen appliances and other household items, more than half sold stationery, books, and magazines, and about 40 per cent, of the supermarkets sold hardware, toys, and nylon, stockings all on the self-service basis. Certain fundamental policies oharacterise the operation of supermarkets. The most important is emphasis on national or well-known manufacturers* brands. Since there are, no sales people to push a particular or little known brand, the supermarket must Carry merchandise which needs no point of sale effort. This ties in with the policy of mass displays. Supermarket operators have found that the average housewife likes to select from a large assortment. She enjoys walking from pile to. pile with the assurance that she can find almost any brand as well as practically every product she might possibly desire. When the housewife has finished selecting the groceries, she can move to the greengrocery department, and from there to the meat department, where again she has the choice of practically every possible cut of meat in large refrigerator display cases and packaged in clear cellophane with the price and weight marked. From there she can move to the fish department, where most certainly she will find the largest assortment in her district and from there to the dairy department, whore as many as 75 different kinds of cheese will be carried. The operators have found that such a variety of offerings all under the one roof increases the purchases of the average customer. She cannot resist the cumulative force of mass displays and often buys more than she had planned.

FAT LAMB SCHEDULE UNCHANGED Schedule prices assessed by meat operators for the highest grades in each class of meat for the week ending May 16 remain unchanged throughout New Zealand. Tlie South Island prices are:—Lamb, 22d per lb; wethers, 13d; ewes, 7d; ox beef. 97s 6d. AUSTRALIA AND N.Z. “UNDER-BORROWED” —— • By any reasonable standards Australia and New Zealand are under-borrowed, states the "Australian Financial Review," which points out that both countries have had to cut their developmental programmes for lack of finance. The interest service on Australia’s external public debt is now down to the very low figure of 2.7 per cent, of export income. New Zealand has similarly reduced its debt service to 1 per cent, of export revenue. Compared with the dangerously high 1931 levels of 35.5 per cent, for Australia, and 23.3 per cent, for New Zealand, these current figures of the interest burden are very low.