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
 David Walker - Acting CEO
Revenue Steady A$4.11 billion (2015)[1]
Decrease A$114 million (2015)[1]
Number of employees
 22,000+
Parent Woolworths Limited
Website bigw.com.au

Big W is an Australian chain of discount department stores, which was founded in regional New South Wales in 1964. The company is a division of Woolworths Limited and currently operates 186 stores, with about 22,000 employees across Australia and Asia.

History

Woolworths Limited developed the Big W brand to provide Australian shoppers with a broad range of general merchandise products in a dedicated one-stop-shop. The Big W chain grew out of Woolworths Limited's original Variety stores, which carried a small range of general merchandise products. The first Big W stand-alone store opened in 1964 at Jesmond, New South Wales. Big W's name reflects the complementary relationship it has with Woolworths Supermarkets. The separation of Big W and Woolworths supermarkets was largely completed by 1989, although a few Woolworths Variety stores continued to operate into the 1990s (such as the one in Rundle Mall, Adelaide).

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.[2]

Services

In 2007, Big W began trialling 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.[3] Big W were the first company in Australia to use 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.

In August 2014, Big W launched its first Party store at Rouse Hill in New South Wales and its second at the newly refurbished Macquarie Centre at North Ryde in New South Wales. There are currently 134 such stores across Australia.[4]

Big W is the leading and largest physical 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. ↑ "Store Finder". Big W.
  3. ↑ Big W Vision - Optical Locations
  4. ↑ "Party Stores". Big W.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Big W.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/1/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.