London, Oct 7 - Supermarkets, keen to bolster slim profit margins and cash in on consumers' current focus on value, are pushing further out of their core food market, piling extra pressure on specialist retailers already hit by a downturn.
Asda, Britain's second-biggest grocer, said on Sunday it had launched a non-food Web site, Asda Direct, selling 9,000 goods ranging from furniture and clothes to power tools and toys.
The move expands on the U.S.-owned group's instore non-food offering and mimics market leader Tesco's home shopping business Tesco Direct, launched two years ago. Number three J. Sainsbury plans a similar initiative next year.
The expansion opens a new front in the battle between the big supermarket groups and poses a challenge to Home Retail Group's Argos, Britain's biggest household goods retailer.
But above all, it heaps fresh misery on specialist retailers, which are bearing the brunt of a consumer downturn that has already driven several of them out of business.
"It's going to add fuel to the fire," said Bryan Roberts, global research director at Planet Retail, who sees homewares, toys and clothing stores as most at risk from the supermarket expansion.
"One implication is the sudden nationwide availability of the George range, which could have quite an impact on fashion retailing," he said of Asda's popular clothing range.
Asda, owned by the world's biggest retailer, U.S. group Wal-Mart, said its Asda Direct Web site would be followed by a 644-page catalogue in the coming days. Customers can initially order products online or by phone for home delivery. Store collection and in-store kiosks will follow.
The multi-channel strategy mirrors Tesco Direct, which now sells about 12,000 products online, around 7,000 in its 1,000-page catalogue and has 233 sales points within stores.
Home shopping is still a nascent business for supermarkets
-- Tesco expects Tesco Direct to make a trading loss of 20 -- Tesco expects Tesco Direct to make a trading loss of 20 million pounds in the year to end-February 2009.
But it is an increasingly important part of an expansion into non-food goods, as grocers look to take advantage of their economies of scale to muscle into a fragmented market which tends to have higher profit margins than food.
DISTRESS
Retail researchers Verdict estimate grocers already account for 11 percent of Britain's 167-billion-pound ($293 billion) non-food market and expect this to grow to around 13-14 percent over the next two years, helped by multi-channel strategies.
Most supermarket stores are constrained by space and so Web sites and catalogues are powerful ways of reaching extra customers, while home delivery plays to the logistical strengths of grocers, said Verdict analyst Neil Saunders.
"If you have the choice of buying the same, or a similar, product and the grocer can give you a two-hour delivery slot and can get it to you the next day, and the other player can't, it's a bit of a no-brainer who you go for," he said.
The multi-channel approach is a direct challenge to Argos, which offers about 18,000 products from a Web site, 1,800-page catalogue and 700 stores. But analysts believe it has the buying power and focus on low prices to cope.
More at risk are specialist store groups, which are already suffering as Britons curb spending amid higher food and fuel costs, sliding house prices and growing economic uncertainty.
This is clear from Tesco's interim results, which showed Britain's top retailer growing sales strongly where specialists are suffering, signalling it is adding to their woes.
While Tesco's UK non-food sales rose a fairly modest 4 percent to 4.1 billion pounds in the six months to Aug. 23, electrical goods sales were up 9 percent, toy sales up 12 percent and do-it-yourself products up 17 percent.
This is in marked contrast to weak results reported by electricals specialist DSG, toy-focused variety group Woolworths and DIY-chain Homebase.
Competition from grocers, on top of the consumer downturn, could push a growing number of specialists out of business.
Corporate insolvency firm Begbies Traynor has 323 retailers on its "critical watch" list, which it defines as having a 70 percent chance or more of failing, and believes many will struggle to survive much beyond Christmas.