Big W

This article is about the Australian department store. For other uses, see Big W (disambiguation).
BIG W
Subsidiary
Industry Retail
Founded 1964
Headquarters Bella Vista, New South Wales, Australia
Number of locations
 186
Key people
  • Sally Macdonald
    (CEO January 2016)
Products

Ladieswear Menswear Kidswear Footwear Underwear & Sleepwear Home Leisure Toys & Sporting Electronics Optometry Gardening Pets

Party
Revenue Steady A$4.11 billion (2015)[1]
Decrease A$114 million (2015)[1]
Number of employees
 24,000
Parent Woolworths Limited
Slogan

Australia's Lowest Prices Everyday

Think Big
Website bigw.com.au

BIG W, is a leading Australian chain of discount department stores founded in 1964. The company is a division of Woolworths Limited and currently has 186 stores, and 24,000 employees in Australia and Asia.

Big W has struggled financially in recent times to major Wesfarmers competitor Kmart. In 2015, financial year results were flat. In third quarter of 2016, reveune declined. Management re-structures have been undertaken at Woolworths Limited.

History

Woolworths Limited's original Woolworths Variety stores carried a range of general merchandise. An increasing percentage of later stores opened sold supermarket grocery lines, which eventually became the parent company's main focus. In the 1960s, the company created BIG W discount Variety or Family Department Stores to complement Woolworths Supermarkets and, ultimately, replace the extensive variety store network.

The first BIG Q stand-alone store opened in 1964 in Jesmond.[2] A second BIG Q opened in Kotara NSW in 1965 and by 1969 every state in Australia had a BIG W store.[3] The separation of BIG W and Woolworths supermarkets was largely completed by 1989, although a few Woolworths variety stores operated into the 1990s (such as the one in Rundle Mall, Adelaide).

In October 2003, Woolworths announced a $1 billion makeover of BIG Q, including a new store format, logo and slogan. The first store with the new format in the Rouse Hill Town Centre in New South Wales, was opened in March 2008, followed by the Top Ryde and Geelong stores.[4] The new logo started appearing in advertising, on store dockets and on a new BIG W website in 2007. The former tagline "We sell for less" was replaced with "Live big for less".

In June 2015 BIG Q opened the Brickworks Marketplace store in Adelaide, South Australia alongside sister retailers Woolworths and Dan Murphy's with a new store format. The new store introduced department 'Gateways' to welcome customers into each area as well as retaining a strong focus on brands throughout. although this might not seem right, but Big Q has departed from Australia

Stores

In 2015, there were 186 BIG W stores trading across Australia: 63 in New South Wales, 46 in Queensland, 34 in Victoria, 17 in Western Australia, 17 in South Australia, 5 in the Australian Capital Territory, 3 in Tasmania and 1 trading in the Northern Territory.[5]

Services

In 2007, BIG W began trialing the provision of optometry services in South Australia and since then, these services have been added to selected stores in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.[6] BIG W pioneered the Australian use of self-serve checkouts, which were introduced in 2003 on a trial basis in two of Sydney's major stores and began expanding throughout Australia in late 2005.

August 2014 saw BIG W launch its first Party Store at their Rouse Hill store, and its second Party store at the newly refurbished Macquarie Centre in North Ryde, NSW. There are currently 134 BIG W Party Stores making BIG W the leading Party retailer in Australia [7]

BIG W is the leading and largest physical (bricks and mortar) retailer of books and toys in Australia.

References

  1. 1 2 Sales report. "Full Year Results - Financial Year 2015" (PDF). Retrieved 10 November 2014.
  2. ↑ "First BIG Q Discount Department Store opens".
  3. ↑ "Big Q Case Study - Streamline Catalogue Production" (PDF).
  4. ↑ "Woolies plans to put big back in Big Q". Australian Financial Review. 22 October 2007: 14.
  5. ↑ "BIG W Store Locator".
  6. ↑ Big W Vision - Optical Locations
  7. ↑ "Big W Party Store".

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to BIG W.
Video clips
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