Grocery player steps up its game to fill the void left by the big boys. Victoria’s NQR will open in NSW and South Australia in the next 24 months, with plans to open four new stores every year for the next five years. NQR has built its business on providing supply solutions to local manufacturers, while providing discounted stock for consumers. It was once thought of as the “dint in the can business”, supplying products, which as its name suggests were not quite right. Since then th
e business has grown to be a fast and efficient, one stop shop for manufacturers needing to move stock.
Aaron Fitzgerald, CEO of NQR, told Inside Retail PREMIUM it has been inundated in the last six to 12 months with new suppliers and manufacturers finding it challenging to deal with the majors.
“Whether it be looking after logistics challenges for them and ranging some of their stock, helping suppliers and manufacturers that might have been de-ranged from Coles and Woolworths by moving inventory for them, or new suppliers looking for a platform to expand their product range, we open our arms to anyone and offer ourselves as being one phone call away to help where we can.”
Established in 1987, NQR today has 23 stores in Victoria and an online business catering to interstate customers.
“We feel that we have some expansion left in Victoria before we make that step across the borders,” said Fitzgerald of the business’ planned expansion.
NQR began as an offshoot of challenges manufacturers had with Four’n Twenty pies that weren’t the correct weight. As a result,Four’n Twenty workers opened the first NQR store as a way of moving the faulty stock.
“All of a sudden a lot of different manufacturers started knocking on the door and asking how they could be ranged, and how they could also move some of their stock,” said Fitzgerald.
It sells stock to the public at a heavily discounted price point, generally between 50 to 80 per cent off.
Products primarily come from pallets that are turned away from major retailers for reasons such as being excess stock, end of promotional lines, packaging changes, or damaged pallets.
“When a pallet is returned to the supplier, often the supplier has no other way of moving that stock except through someone like ourselves.
“That becoming a more and more prevalent part of our business, dealing with the major manufacturers in that regard.
“Specification changes may be as minor as pallet configuration or pack size, yet they are enough to cause major logistical challenges for suppliers, and that’s where we come in.”
This story originally appeared in Inside Retail PREMIUM issue 2008.
