- Bunnings Warehouse was ranked top online retailer
- Top five also included Woolworths, Kmart, Coles, and Kogan
- Commercial property also red hot, ranked most desirable class of asset
Real retail recoiled during pandemic, recovery results are a mixed bag. As Australians hit the net for their retail fix, ABS figures showed an almost $1.5 billion jump in internet sales.
In the meantime, online retail has predictably reached record highs, and distribution centres and logistics real estate have likewise seen booms.
Online retail top 100
The top 100 online retailers were announced at an awards night in Melbourne yesterday evening, the top retailer had built up quite the consumer base, and that was only ‘just the beginning’.
With stuck at home Australians shopping more online, another trend also took off – DIY home renovations. This trend certainly resonated with the top online retailer Bunnings Warehouse.
Organiser of the Awards, Power Retail, said although Bunnings was slow to the online world, they well and truly made up for it:
“Bunnings Warehouse was a major winner online from COVID-19, with a massive leap in traffic and sales that propelled Bunnings ahead of the supermarket duopoly for the first time ever. A laggard to online, Bunnings most definitely arrived and then some in 2020, with click and collect, plus its marketplace offering seeing an enormous surge.”
Bunnings was followed by usual supermarket suspect Woolworths, but Coles came in fourth, beaten by Kmart which took out the third spot.
The top 10 online retailers are:
- Bunnings Warehouse
- Woolworths
- Kmart
- Coles
- Kogan
- Catch
- Target
- Chemist Warehouse
- Officeworks
- JB Hi-Fi
Logistics and distribution property on the up
It comes as no surprise that delivery companies and other players in the supply chain for online retail benefitted significantly.
Whilst physical retail flailed, commercial property well and truly took off. Last week The Property Tribune reported in Perth, industrial and logistics assets were the most desirable type of real estate asset.
Melbourne’s industrial real estate is also hot property at the moment, a tightly held market meaning a new development by Centuria Industrial REIT (ASX: CIP) will be worth some $88.8 million after developing land purchased for over $26 million. Centuria also acquired a $27 million distribution centre in Central Western Sydney earlier this month, taking the company’s buying activities to $784 million in the current financial year (before the Melbourne acquisition).
Earlier in March, reports said the momentum is expecting to grow, in a previous annual report, GPT Group (ASX: GPT) saw returns fall 2.4%, this year the company estimates movement in a positive direction with 8% growth on funds from operations per security.
Woolworths also grew its distribution networks with a new centre in Queensland, and Growthpoint’s (ASX: GOZ) portfolio was buoyed by a 10.5 year lease at Adelaide Airport, Australia Post setting up its distribution centre there.
