By SIMON HENDERY
Cafe owner Phil Macdonald's blend of coffee and CDs has gone down a treat with retail heavyweight Whitcoulls.
The bookstore chain has snapped up Cedica, the combination cafe and music shop Mr Macdonald has run in central Auckland for the past two years.
Whitcoulls plans to duplicate the Cedica format
within two of its largest stores, the chain's first move into the highly competitive music retailing arena.
The company's chief operating officer, Fran Stanley, said that although The Warehouse chain accounted for about half of all New Zealand music sales, Whitcoulls - which already sells DVDs and videos - saw a niche in the "adult" music market.
"As soon as you get a market as dominated by a discount chain as New Zealand is by The Warehouse, there are two options - you either roll over and say game over, or you look for opportunities to compete in a different way."
Cedica appealed to the 30-year-old-plus market, especially jazz and classical fans, and offered personal service from knowledgeable staff, she said.
Under the deal with Mr Macdonald, his High St cafe will close and a Cedica "store-within-store" outlet will open in Whitcoulls' Queen St shop next month.
A similar store-within-store will follow when Whitcoulls opens a new shop at east Auckland's Botany Town Centre in May.
Mr Macdonald will oversee the new stores.
If the concept works, a national expansion within other Whitcoulls stores might follow.
Although Whitcoulls believed Cedica would appeal to its urban customers, the company had yet to test the concept's suitability for provincial stores, Fran Stanley said.
Cedica opened in 1999 and the store won the start-up business section of the Auckland Top Shop awards last year.
Mr Macdonald said the idea of offering customers a coffee while they sampled music selections through headphones had proved a successful mix, and he was excited about the expansion of the business that would be possible through the Whitcoulls deal.
"There are a lot of people in Auckland yet to hear about Cedica. Whitcoulls will give us the opportunity to expose the concept to a lot of people."
