Retail in the Republic of Ireland

In the Republic of Ireland, the retail sector provides an important source of employment and forms the majority of the tertiary sector of the economy.

upermarkets

The Republic of Ireland has two major supermarket chains: Tesco Ireland, a subsidiary of Tesco plc with 91 stores (4 superettes, 5 small super, 44 large super, 38 hyper), and Dunnes Stores, owned by a trust consisting of members of the family of its founder, Ben Dunne Snr, and boasting 123 stores (this number includes some stores without supermarkets, however). A third large supermarket chain is Superquinn, though this has only 21 stores, and is based mainly in Leinster (2 small super, 15 large super, 4 hyper). Marks and Spencer also operates a small number of supermarket sites.

The traditional multiple supermarket chains have been also challenged by the emergence of the Musgrave SuperValu supermarket format. These stores are operated mostly by franchisees, although several franchisees have built up large chains in their own right within the SuperValu group. There are now 173 SuperValu supermarkets in Ireland. SPAR and Londis have also branched out into supermarket format franchise stores, with their Eurospar and Londis Plus formats. As of yet these are a minority of stores.

Recent years have also seen the emergence of cut-price own brand chains Aldi and Lidl into the Irish market. These two chains have, in the space of half a decade, won an 8% market share, and operate over 100 stores in total.

While there is much competition in the supermarket sector, it is tempered by the presence of the Restrictive Practices (Groceries) Order 1987 (known as the "Groceries Order"). This order makes it illegal to sell any good below the invoice price. The order was instituted to prevent a price war along the lines which led to the collapse of the supermarket chain H Williams in 1987.

This has the effect of banning cross-subsidy and loss leaders.

However it is held by many to restrict competition, and did not prevent the withdrawal of Roches Stores from food retailing and Iceland (store) from the Republic of Ireland altogether, both in 2005. Its removal is opposed by the Retail, Groceries, Dairy, and Allied Trades Association, the newsagents and convenience stores trade association, a powerful lobby group in Ireland. On 8 November 2005, Micheal Martin, the Irish Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment announced that the Order would be revoked in early 2006. This was done so via the enactment of the "Competition (Amendment) Act 2006" [http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2006/A406.pdf] in March 2006, section 4 (1) of which explicitly repealed the Order.

Convenience Stores and Newsagents

Convenience store formats have been gradually displacing the traditional newsagent format in Ireland in recent times. The first convenience store format was the VG format introduced by Musgrave in 1960, becoming Centra (and SuperValu) in 1979. Other major convenience store formats include SPAR, owned in Ireland by BWG, Mace, and ADM Londis. Smaller convenience store formats include XL Stop and Shop, Costcutter, and Vivo. A small number of symbol groups which provide branded goods, but not shop formats and signage, still persist, but are gradually dying out. These include the formerly prominent Homestead brand.

Just as the convenience store groups have been moving into larger supermarket formats, so the supermarkets have been moving into smaller formats to challenge the symbol groups. Tesco operate a small number of "Tesco Ireland Local" and "Tesco Express" stores, while Superquinn operates two "Superquinn Select" convenience stores. Marks and Spencer also operates a small number of convenience stores under the "Simply Food" banner. While Dunnes Stores does not operate a separate convenience store brand, some of its Dublin city outlets now have an offering more resembling a large convenience store than a traditional supermarket.

Newsagents still exist. The Eason chain of high street newsagents and booksellers is the largest in the country, with its only major rival being the much smaller Hughes & Hughes. In Dublin the two major local chains are Tuthill's and Bus Stop.

Forecourt convenience stores

The main petrol station brands in Ireland have also moved into this area. Irish oil company Maxol has an alliance with Mace to provide convenience stores in its stations, while TOP was formerly allied with ADM Londis (and as a result, many TOP stations have Londis outlets). Esso Ireland, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, is expanding its "On The Run" convenience store brand in the Dublin area, while Statoil Ireland offers its "Fareplay" convenience store brand. Texaco Ireland (owned by Chevron Corporation) also has "StarMarket" stores. Only Irish Shell - no longer owned by Royal Dutch Shell, but operated by Topaz Energy under a licence agreement. As part of Topaz's takeover of Statoil Ireland, it has acquired the global rights to the "Fareplay" brand. Topaz are now rebranding all Statoils, Shells and Fareplays in Ireland to its new "Topaz" brand.

Department/Clothing Stores

The biggest clothing retailer in Ireland is Dunnes Stores, with 123 stores (some of these are food-only sites, however). Primark (under the Penney's brand) is also a major retailer in the clothing sector. Roches Stores also has a chain of major department stores in Ireland. Roches was taken over by the UK department store giant, Debenhams in mid 2006 and all stores have since rebranded to the latter's brand. The high street chain River Island is represented by 17 stores with 3 of them in Dublin. Within Dublin, Clerys and Arnotts are two major city centre department stores. Clerys only has a small number of other sites (as "At Home with Clerys"). Menarys are a Northern Irish clothing store. Tempest are another Northern Irish clothing store with a store in the Republic. Heatons are another Irish department store with 57 stores nationwide.Topaz has caused some upset recently by 'using' the petograss (Applegreen)tag line.

High Street Retailing

In Ireland the High Street is still a major draw, despite the growing number of out of town shopping centres. Most major British high street names now operate in the Republic of Ireland, such as Dixons, Next, Debenhams, Topshop, and others. In addition Ireland has its own High Street brands, such as newsagents Eason & Son, record stores Golden Discs, and others.

hopping Centres

Out of town shopping centres, anchored by a major supermarket, have been developed in Ireland since the 1960s, with Dunnes Stores' Cornelscourt being one of the first. A precursor of the 1990s town centres was developed in Stillorgan in the late 1960s, as well as the two major Dublin city centre shopping malls, the Ilac Centre and Irish Life Shopping Mall. (These were joined in the 1990s by the Jervis Centre).

However in the 1990s a new phenomeon of large shopping malls, not dominanted by one tenant but with a number of anchor tenants, high street names, and usually a cinema, grew up in the Dublin suburbs. These four major "town centres", in order of building, are The Square, Tallaght, Blanchardstown Centre, Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, and Dundrum Town Centre.

In Munster, shopping centres have also emerged on the outskirts of Cork, Limerick and Waterford cities catering not just for the city residents but also for the suburban and country shoppers, such as [http://www.mahonpointsc.ie Mahon Point] in Cork, Crescent Shopping Centre in Limerick and City Square Shopping Centre in Waterford.

In Connacht, shopping centres have primarily developed in the centre and outskirts of Galway city including the Eyre Square Centre, Edward Square, Galway Shopping Centre and Briarhill Shopping Centre, elsewhere in The large towns of Sligo and Castlebar centres such as The Quayside and Johnston Court centres have been developed offering many new international and national retailers to these areas.

Retail Parks

In addition to these new out of town shopping malls are smaller retail parks. Located on the outskirts of approximately twenty towns and cities, ranging from Letterkenny, eg. Letterkenny Retail Parks to Limerick, eg. Childers Road Retail Parkto [Galway City] , eg. [Wellpark Retail Park, Galway Retail Park, Gateway Retail Park] , these new parks have no internal shopping malls. They usually consist of between five and ten major outlets surrounding a large carpark. The parks are typically built beside a major road with the idea being - free parking, easy to get to and plenty of space. Anchor tenants often include Woodies DIY, Atlantic Homecare, Harry Corry or Elverys sports. Many British stores also appear in these parks (eg. Argos and Homebase).

ee also

*Economy of the Republic of Ireland
*Rip-Off Republic
*Celtic Tiger

External links

* [http://www.irna.ie/ Irish Retail Newsagents Association]
* [http://www.shelflife.ie/ Shelflife Magazine]