'Dusted Off' - Wonders of choice

Kalgoorlie residents are enjoying more of what Perth shoppers have taken for granted for years – choice in expensive items and a quick trip to the local supermarket for daily needs – and Perth retailers could be the worse off for it.

Kalgoorlie supports super-markets in two outer suburbs of the city and is about to be offered an alternative discount shopping experience to Kmart.

But locals haven’t got what they wanted without drama.

There are no formal estimates, but anecdotal evidence suggests Goldfielders spend a lot of money outside of the region, most particularly in Perth.

‘A lot’ could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, given the most recent estimate of retail turnover in Kalgoorlie was $470 million in 2001-02.

By way of example, in Ballarat, Victoria’s third largest city, it’s estimated that as much as one third of residents’ $1 billion-plus total annual available retail spend escapes from local retailers.

The City of Ballarat has done a study of the retail wants and needs of residents. The study discovered residents will travel to spend money for products they believe they can’t get in Ballarat, in terms of type, quality and price.

The case is much the same in Kalgoorlie. The choice to travel or buy through mail order is easy when you believe you are paying top dollar for a piece of furniture you know will cost half the price in Perth, even if the quality is not as good.

The problem has been a lack of price differentiation between retail outlets in Kalgoorlie.

Frustrated residents made their retail needs known to the city council more than a decade ago. They wanted a second discount store.

Well, a 3,300 square metre Target store – the likes of which are usually only found in metropolitan areas – and an additional 1,050sqm of speciality shops are due to open next month in the centre of Kalgoorlie.

The launch is the subject of huge excitement in the city. Many people have suspended buying anything more than the weekly grocery shop to see what Target will offer in opening week specials.

It is all the more amazing because no-one – not even the city council, which identified the demand for a second store and through studies knew the city could sustain another store – thought it was going to happen.

The City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s local commercial strategy, which covers retail policy, states “that the prospect of achieving a second discount department store in the city centre by 2006 is very small”.

The strategy was written a couple of years ago when the council was still hoping a redevelopment proposal by Woolworths would result in a Big W being built in Kalgoorlie.

Macquarie CountryWide Trust, owner of the Kalgoorlie Woolworths store, which has recorded the biggest turnover per square metre for 20 years of any Woolies supermarket in Australia, still hasn’t carried out the $2.2 million refurbishment it announced in 2003.

Meanwhile, commercial developer Greg Pearce last year bought up and bulldozed more than a dozen residential properties near Hannan Street to create a big enough parcel of land to attract Target as a long-term tenant of a small shopping centre he is a month away from completing.

Mr Pearce said the city council went out of its way to ensure approvals went through quickly.

 “We obtained planning approval from application in 21 working days, which is unheard of in my business,” Mr Pearce said.

City councillors must have been thanking their lucky stars.

Within weeks of Target opening, council has picked a fight with Woolworths about the refurbishment of the store’s back wall facing Hannan Street. Council wants Macquarie CountryWide to pay to upgrade the wall’s footpath.

Surely, such a fight is a luxury that only comes from having choice.

 • Based in the Goldfields, Sharon Kemp is a former reporter, most recently with  The Age.