Entering Australian retail: the complete guide

Australian grocery retail is one of the most concentrated in the world. On FY2022-23 sales, the ACCC's Supermarkets Inquiry final report, released in March 2025, puts Woolworths at 38 percent of national supermarket grocery sales, Coles at 29 percent, ALDI at 9 percent and Metcash, the wholesaler behind most independent supermarkets, at about 7 percent. Coles and Woolworths together hold roughly 67 percent, a structure the ACCC describes as oligopolistic. For a new supplier that means a small number of buyers control access to most of the country's grocery shelves.

The prize is why suppliers keep coming. ABS figures cited in the same ACCC report put Australian grocery spending at almost $148 billion in 2022-23, with supermarkets taking about $126.5 billion of it, roughly 85 percent. The report's Table 2.1 puts FY23 supermarket retail sales at $48.0 billion for Woolworths, $36.7 billion for Coles, $12.0 billion for ALDI and $8.4 billion for Metcash's wholesale supply.

Concentration cuts both ways. A single yes can put you into 860 Coles supermarkets, per Coles' 2025 full year results as at 29 June 2025, or 1,117 Woolworths Australian Food stores, per Woolworths Group's F25 results. A single no closes most of the channel until the next review. That is why this guide treats channel choice, arithmetic and compliance as one job rather than three.

Supermarkets are not the only door. For health, beauty and wellness brands, pharmacy is a national channel in its own right: Sigma Healthcare's 2025 annual results, its first since the merger with Chemist Warehouse Group, report 588 Chemist Warehouse franchise stores across Australia and $10.3 billion in retail network sales for the year to 30 June 2025, while Wesfarmers' corporate site lists more than 470 Priceline and Priceline Pharmacy stores.

General merchandise runs through the discount department stores. Wesfarmers' corporate pages put Kmart at 323 stores across Australia and New Zealand and Target at 124 Australian stores, and Woolworths Group's F25 results report 179 BIG W stores with $4,644 million in sales and a $35 million loss before interest and tax. That loss is worth sitting with: even a national chain is managing thin economics, and its buyers negotiate accordingly.

The independents are the classic proving ground. Metcash's FY25 results, for the year ended 30 April 2025, report $10.6 billion in Food sales with the IGA network about 60 percent of it, and IGA like-for-like figures built on scan data from 1,122 stores. Independents range locally and decide faster, and real rate of sale from IGA or independent pharmacy is evidence a supermarket buyer can defend internally. ALDI is a different model again: a limited range, mostly private label, across what its own About ALDI Australia page describes as more than 595 stores, so branded slots are few and contested.

Three figures do more work than any deck. First, trade spend: the rebates, co-op contributions and promotional funding you pay the retailer out of gross sales. In Australian FMCG it commonly runs 10 to 25 percent, it is deducted before you are paid, and most founders meet their real number after signing trading terms, which is the wrong side of the signature.

Second, retailer margin, which runs roughly 25 to 45 percent depending on category. Build the pricing waterfall before you contact anyone: shelf price at the top, retailer margin off, trade spend line by line, freight into the distribution centre, and what actually reaches you per unit. If the last line is negative, a national ranging makes the problem bigger, not smaller, and the fix is a different price, pack size or channel, not a better pitch.

Third, rate of sale, the units each store sells per week. The buyer holds shelf space that incumbent products are already paying rent on, so your case has to show you will out-earn whatever you displace. You will not have supermarket scan data yet, so use what you have: DTC volumes, marketplace velocity, sell-through in independents or pharmacy. Real numbers from a small channel beat projections from none.

Australian retailers range on a calendar, not on enthusiasm. Each category is re-decided at a range review roughly every six months, and missing the window means waiting for the next one. The formal mechanism is a new line submission covering cost price, recommended retail price, promotional pricing, case configuration and barcodes. If the buyer is interested, the invitation to present can arrive with about two weeks' notice, which is enough time to tailor a case you already built and not enough to build one.

A yes starts the expensive part. The first purchase order typically lands one to six months after the decision, and you carry production, packaging and compliance costs across that gap before a dollar comes back. Use the gap deliberately: it is when EDI accreditation, barcode verification and pallet compliance get finished, because none of them can start at the first PO.

Holding the shelf is a supply chain exercise. EDI, the electronic connection carrying purchase orders and invoices between you and the retailer, must be accredited before production orders flow, and builds take months, not weeks. Barcodes must be GS1 verified at unit, carton and pallet level. Deliveries arrive in fixed windows with ASNs, the advance shipping notices that tell the distribution centre what is coming, and the retailer scores it all as DIFOT, delivered in full and on time.

Getting this wrong has a price. Chargebacks, the deductions retailers apply for late, short or non-compliant deliveries, commonly run 1 to 5 percent of invoice value, straight off margins already thinned by trade spend. And DIFOT is the number the buyer checks before your story at the next review, so a compliance failure costs shelf as well as cash.

The deepest failure mode is cash timing. Trade spend is deducted before you are paid, a large PO digs a large working capital hole while you wait, and the environment punishes optimism: 871 Australian retail businesses hit insolvency for the first time in FY25, and a meaningful share of those failures were cash flow timing rather than demand. Model the cash curve of the PO you want, week by week, before you accept it. Sometimes the honest answer is a smaller ranging first, or not yet.

Start by conceding what nobody controls. The buyer decides, every time, and anyone guaranteeing shelf space is describing their marketing rather than the process. If you are an international brand, the import mechanics, customs, duties and labelling law, stay with your own advisers; the retail case, the arithmetic and the compliance are the parts this guide covers and the parts you can prepare.

Built for Retail, a trading name of Bettapak, works this process as a distribution agent; our team has ranged brands into Australian retailers across Chemist Warehouse, Woolworths, Coles and Priceline, and past rangings never promise future ones. If the modelling is your gap, the Retail-Readiness Sprint applies this guide to your numbers at a fixed fee, $15,000 for a single retailer scope or $25,000 across multiple retailers, over about four weeks: trade spend, pricing waterfall, review calendar and compliance gap list. You keep the model either way, and sometimes its answer is not yet. The Sprint is indicative and does not guarantee ranging.