Page 23 - IB MAY 2017

Business

IGA

the new shopping experience

New World’s partnership with IGA gives consumers access to quality goods Photo:Invictus
chain. This basically means most, if not has a place in the market that they want
all supermarkets across Fiji would possess to play with, that they want to focus on.”
the same products. There is currently 20 shops in the New
Hence, the IGA concept was the most World portfolio, and FNPF plaza is the
appealing for the Newwrold Group to 6th IGA store.
mark its point of difference – also being Royce said the conversion to the IGA
the first retailer in the country to introduce format depended simply on the area and
IGA in Fiji. size of the outlet in that area. It has how-
By Priya Chand In 2012, the directors and the board ever introduced some of the range found
THE New World Group is changing the went to the USA to have a discussion with in IGA stores across the normal stores.
landscape of retail sales in Fiji having IGA and they signed up the master fran- Apart from a state-of the-art shopping
acquired the Master Franchise Status chise for both Fiji Islands and for Papua experience, with a large variety of prod-
from the Independent Grocers Association New Guinea. Each IGA shop costs around ucts, Royce said the Newworld group was
(IGA) in the United States of America. two to three million dollars (FJ). particularly proud of another perk associ-
This transition has no doubt changed Newworld General Manager IGA, Peter ated with the IGA – staff training.
the shopping experience of many Fijians, Royce gave Islands Business an insight “We have access to the IGA Learning
not to mention uplifted the standard of into its reasoning and the decision mak- center in US and also a learning center in
supermarkets in the country. ing process in transitioning its stores to Australia and this means that we can give
Essentially, IGA is a group of retailers an IGA concept. any one of our staff a certificate for in retail
that have gotten together and formed a Royce said it was important to give operations which if you were to apply for
syndicate that allows them to have the the people “variety” to choose from, and a supermarket manager overseas – the
buying power and the access to range “change the way that people shopped.” minimum requirement is a certificate in
that the major players overseas have got. “So there’s a wishlist from people who retail operations,” he said.
In addition, generally, a lot of the sup- have been to Australia, NZ, US, and they “There is no retail training available in
pliers and manufacturers have minimum say why can’t I have the products that Fiji even though probably 50per cent of
order quantities. In that regard, if the are available to them, because obviously business is made up of small traders, so
minimum order quantity for instance, because being a small island, there’s not our point of difference is also that each
for a kettle is 100,000 pieces in a year, a lot of stuff one can get locally made, and of our managers and staff have access to
no single operator would be able to buy you’re reliant on those 27 importers to that training portal.”
100,000 pieces. But because IGA is a col- bring in those lines that they seem fit for He said this was an added advantage as
lective group with 5000 shops globally, market rather than what the consumers managers on the floor were now in a bet-
it can order 100,000 pieces and be able are telling us they want,” he said. ter position to make informed decisions.
to distribute it amongst the IGA stores “Also each supermarket chain need to Royce said plans were under way with
accordingly. have their point of difference - you want developers for IGA stores in Labasa and
With particular to Fiji, there are 27 dis- to be the cheapest in market, you want another in Suva.
tributors/suppliers that supply the entire to target different customers, everybody r Priyameyou@gmail.com

Islands Business, May 2017 23