Who's got the biggest box?

Very big-box retail weekend. Saw Botany Downs, got scared. Left. Ventured, out of necessicity into The Warehouse, Farmers, Briscoes and Arbuckles, all in the quest for a blanket to enjoy long winters nights in front of TV. I didn't want a throw. I didn't want something that would grate against my skin. I most certainly didn't want everything in pastel or loafer-tan colours. Erugh.

I just wanted a bloody blanket.

To cap it all off, all the above source from the same suppliers. Same colours, same designs, just different packaging. All ugly ugly ugly. Looks like two suppliers dominate the NZ manchester scene. (In its defence, The Warehouse did have some nice throws, but lost points for pushing hideous snuggle sacks). It took the global giant, K-Mart (Categories managed out of Oz) to prodivde something unique and interesting in the NZ retail blanket scene. A different choice.

If you driven on the southern past Mt Wellington in the past year, you'll have seen the newest big box rising. Well, more a collection of them. Sylvia Park will be mamoth. Just huge. The fact it's opening in stages will give you that. The fact there will be three players desperate for your weekly grocery shop (Progs, Foodies and -if you havn't heard, where have you been - The Warehouse.

But if you're looking for hope to find something unique and interesting - like a blanket- you won't. It'll be the same thing, really. These blokes have signed up. So have these. A few new aussie retailers are all over it, including Howard's Storage World and Secrets, the diamond-in-a-lab company (also opening in Newmarket). And despite being a construction site still, the carparks are already: a. in the plural, b. large and c. full.

But look down the aisles at these stores. Match them up. Same old stuff. Foodtown will certainly have the best food offer, but it wont be different to Greenlane Foodtown. Dollars though volume. Foodstuffs teaming up with Metcash, Progressive's recent supplier stouch, twisting the arms of suppliers on both sides of the tasman, will mean less choice for the consumer. A jetset marketing adviser told The Sydney Morning Herald that

"My experience of this happening in the UK is there's very little manufacturers can do but roll over. It's standard operating procedure for retailers. The first thing they do is look at the price book of the company they've acquired and drive down prices. When Wal-Mart took over ASDA in the UK, the instructions were to do exactly that."

He went on to say,

"Sympathetic to the plight of small manufacturers" but they would disappear in the Woolworth's takeover of Progressive [and that]"Inevitably a lot of small manufacturers will fall by the wayside."

Much the same point, less callously told, from Rod Oram in the Sunday Star Times.

But, until we see what the lastest oversized ticky-tacky will bring, I now can enjoy those winter nights, in front of the box, warm and comfy with my blanket.