Sisters Bridget Stevens, left, and Rebecca Excell own the Winton Night \u2019n Day store – Bridget has been part of the shop for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n
In Winton, Southland, the pair have 25 staff and a steady stream of customers: the locals who they know on a first-name basis, the truckies lining up at 6am for coffee and hot food and the State Highway 6 travellers popping in for a road-trip snack before heading north to Queenstown or south to Invercargill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a little corner dairy when I started,\u201d Stevens says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOlly Olsson was the owner, Mum worked here as well. When I turned 15, Mum left and they offered me her fulltime job \u2013 I left school and came here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, 17-and-a-half years ago, Olsson sold up. He\u2019d been at Night \u2019n Day\u2019s annual conference and returned home to Winton, informing Stevens that he was offering her the business first.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t stop crying. He was like, \u2018Right, go and talk to your parents about it\u2019. I went and got advice from Mum and Dad, and they were like, \u2018That\u2019s a no-brainer\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2017, Excell bought into the business \u2013 she is now a 40% shareholder in the franchise.<\/p>\n
Together, the pair make a formidable team \u2013 the store has now won five store-of-the-year awards, including their most recent just last week.<\/p>\n
They say they complement each other well \u2013 Stevens with her knowledge and history; Excell, who trained at one point to be a teacher but never made it to the classroom, with her administrative skills. They both have a natural rapport with their staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore Dad passed away, he was the referee,\u201d Excell laughs, when asked if there have ever been any sisterly squabbles. \u201cHe used to come in and sort us out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mum still keeps an eye on the shop as well. \u201cShe\u2019s very proud,\u201d Stevens says.<\/p>\n
Rising from a corner dairy<\/p>\n
Family connections and community links run deep at Night \u2019n Day. Among many examples, there\u2019s father-and-son combination Alan and Hamish Garrick, who own four Night \u2019n Day stores in Queenstown and Arrowtown, and husband-and-wife Sukhwinder Singh and Manjit Kaur, who own the Mt Maunganui and Rotorua stores.<\/p>\n
Alan and Hamish Garrick outside their Kawarau Night ‘n Day store, near Queenstown.<\/p>\n
At the top of the business is general manager Matt Lane, who was born in 1990, the same year that his parents, Andrew and Denise \u2013 the original Night \u2019n Day founders \u2013 turned their fledgling group of stores into a franchise chain.<\/p>\n
The Lane family has owned Night \u2019n Day\u2019s original Regent Rd store in Dunedin since 1984, buying an ageing grocer\u2019s shop with a decaying floor and transforming it, eventually, into a 24-hour student mecca, selling all manner of hangover-curtailing staples (a hot steak pie and Coca Cola, anyone?).<\/p>\n
The Regent Rd store remains world-famous in Dunedin, but 35 years on from its launch as a franchise business, Night \u2019n Day has expanded well beyond its Otago roots, now operating 54 stores across New Zealand. It is the country\u2019s third-biggest retail grocery chain.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the company is pushing for a more level playing field to take on the supermarket duopoly of Foodstuffs \u2013 which runs New World, Pak\u2019nSave and Four Square \u2013 and Woolworths NZ (previously Progressive), the owner of Woolworths and Fresh Choice\/Super Value.<\/p>\n
Last month, Night \u2019n Day rolled back the price of butter to August 2024 prices. Rather than a 500g block of yellow gold selling for around $11, Night \u2018n Day sold 20,000 blocks \u2013 they were limited to one per customer \u2013 for $6.50 each.<\/p>\n
An effective marketing campaign and publicity stunt, it certainly forced home a point about the hefty price of butter, with the duopoly in the spotlight, and broader consumer speculation of a major new competitor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think too much focus is on a third player,\u201d Matt Lane told Karen O\u2019Leary of the Paddy Gower Has Issues TV show.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can we change the market to be a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth? Let\u2019s not limit ourselves. Are the small centres going to end up with Costco\u2019s? Absolutely not.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs Timaru, is Greymouth? They\u2019re not going to end up with a Costco, so why should [those towns] be disadvantaged purely because we\u2019re trying to get an international player that competes in the major cities to try and compress prices?\u201d<\/p>\n
Night \u2019n Day general manager Matt Lane and the Regent Rd store where it all started.<\/p>\n
Breaking the duopoly<\/p>\n
Lane tells the Herald that the duopoly situation has been a long-term problem since the early 2000s and, therefore, needs long-term solutions.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a big fan of the Government effectively carpet-bombing the problem with solutions, rather than a piecemeal approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel \u2013 and it\u2019s easy for me to say this \u2013 that there needs to be an overcorrection and then wind it back if necessary, rather than just trying to take one step, then one step, and then one step, and saying, \u2018Is it actually working?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The Government, the Commerce Commission and \u201cthe whole of New Zealand know it\u2019s an issue\u201d, Lane says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe seem to be content just to say, \u2018We\u2019ll try and tweak wholesale, or create a wholesale supplier. We\u2019ll try and tweak some of the competition rules or the land covenants\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s try to fix everything. If we find that something is a bit harsh, you can still dial it back again to find that parity, but we\u2019re a long way away from creating competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Night \u2019n Day was once a member of the Foodstuffs co-operative, giving it access to wholesale prices of dry grocery items.<\/p>\n
That came to a halt in 2011 – Foodstuffs has previously cited breaches of its membership agreement; the decision also coincided with Night \u2019n Day partnering up with Gull to open 21 new stores in the North Island.<\/p>\n
The grocery challenges have meant some Night \u2019n Day stores lost the ability to hold liquor licences. Because grocery wholesale prices jumped and therefore the retail price lifted, they weren\u2019t selling enough relevant products to be deemed a grocery retailer (and therefore able to also sell booze).<\/p>\n
Despite these hurdles, Night \u2018n Day is a big business success story, largely because of its agility and a necessary pivot away from a focus on groceries \u2013 they\u2019re still there, but currently more expensive because of the wholesale issues \u2013 to a more purposeful, competitive offering within three distinct pillars: coffee, milk bar and fresh food-to-go\/deli foods. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s because everyone can access different prices and you can create a differentiation of the product,\u201d Lane says. \u201cThat\u2019s where we see a massive amount of growth and that allowed us to sustain our operations because we lost all the profitability and sales of grocery.\u201d<\/p>\n
While serving barista coffee and hot food might seem common sense, New Zealand has a reputation for leading these retail trends internationally.<\/p>\n
Lane recalls being at a US retail conference when an expert speaker\u2019s suggestion of barista coffee \u2013 rather than the instant, filter variety \u2013 was met with gasps and concern in the American audience. New Zealand had been selling it for years.<\/p>\n
Night \u2019n Day has also been turbocharged in recent years with delivery service in the form of Uber Eats, Door Dash and Deliver Easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the next step of convenience,\u201d Lane says. \u201cHistorically, we\u2019re a convenience store because you can get in and out very quickly based on the format size.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, convenience arrives at your front door. \u201cPeople are living a lot more here and now. They\u2019re living for the moment. They value their time a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sukhwinder Singh and Manjit Kaur own two Night ‘n Day stores, at Mt Maunganui and Rotorua. Photo \/ Night ‘n Day<\/p>\n
Night \u2019n Day eyes new locations<\/p>\n
While Night \u2019n Day has a network of 54 stores dotted from Southland to Whang\u0101rei and is always looking to grow, Lane says there is no magical number.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the quality over quantity for us. We look at every opportunity as it comes across. We certainly don\u2019t sit there … being complacent with what we\u2019ve got. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe do want to grow, but we want to make sure that it works, first of all, for the brand, franchisees and the site itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lane reveals the company is looking at several potential new sites, including one at Jack\u2019s Point, in Queenstown, as well as exploring some further options in Dunedin.<\/p>\n
There is also a \u201cclear gap\u201d in Hamilton. \u201cIt just feels like that\u2019s a logical city we\u2019re not part of, when you look at our geographical spread.\u201d<\/p>\n
An indication of a franchise value is revealed on Night \u2019n Day\u2019s own website. Right now, two franchises are listed for sale – Cromwell, for $680,000 plus stock at valuation (an estimated $160,000), and Dee St in Invercargill, for $450,000 plus stock at valuation (estimated at $125,000).<\/p>\n
According to the website, the Cromwell store has a weekly turnover of $62,700 and Dee St has a weekly turnover of $51,000. The average gross profit for each site is 34%.<\/p>\n
Lane talks of Night \u2019n Day having more agility than similar-sized retail convenience brands.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t compete on [a marketing] budget with the BPs and the Zs in terms of doing things that way. We\u2019ve just got to do it by creating a point of difference and we do that through our supplier base, speed to market, the ability to have an idea in the morning and execute it in the afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
The origins of Night \u2019n Day<\/p>\n
Like Bridget Stevens in Winton, Matt Lane first experienced life in the shop as a young teenager, stacking shelves. That later became a university job behind the counter, alongside a number of his mates.<\/p>\n
After graduating from Otago University and working for four years at Deloitte, he came back into the business in 2016, working in business development and then finance before becoming general manager in 2019.<\/p>\n
Denise and Andrew Lane bought the Regent Rd store in 1984 – the begininng of their eventual Night ‘n Day network that now has 54 franchise shops. Composite photo \/ Oliver Rusden<\/p>\n
Lane\u2019s mother, Denise Lane, says she and her husband, Andrew, owned two standalone dairies in Dunedin initially. They sold those in 1984 to buy the Regent Rd store in the heart of the student district.<\/p>\n
It was a good-performing store and long-established on a busy street.<\/p>\n
The site also became the family home for the Lanes and their young children, with their residence attached. Staff had to use the family toilet. \u201cOur hallway wasn\u2019t a normal hallway \u2013 it was all filled with shelves and stock because our house was also our storage room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opposite them was a BP station, and the Lanes started hearing whispers that it would start trading 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n
They acted quickly and got in first. They knew they needed to retain their regular customers \u2013 a 24-hour rival threatened to draw them away.<\/p>\n
While Night \u2019n Day went 24 hours, the BP never did. It\u2019s no longer there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the first standalone 24-hour convenience store in New Zealand,\u201d Andrew Lane says. \u201cThere was nothing like it. It started off slow, but it actually picked up and we thought, \u2018we\u2019re on a winner here\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Confident that the model could work elsewhere, the couple then sought out and bought the best dairies in Invercargill and Christchurch.<\/p>\n
In 1990, the couple were at a National Association of Retail Grocers of New Zealand (Nargon) conference where they met representatives from the Night Owl convenience chain from Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that stage, we had five stores and they had 10 or 11, and they explained to us about franchising, which we\u2019d never heard of as a business system back then. We\u2019d probably heard of the McDonald\u2019s way of doing things, but didn\u2019t really know too much about it,\u201d Andrew Lane says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey explained what they had gone through \u2013 they said you should really look at it, it\u2019ll move you away from the day-to-day hassles of operating a convenience store, and you\u2019ll be able to help other people replicate what you\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did some investigation into franchising and we thought, well, yeah, this system works and it works well. And we said, if we\u2019re going to do that, then we\u2019ve got to come up with a brand.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the help and expertise of a Dunedin graphics designer, they came up with the Night \u2019n Day concept and worked over the following months to develop systems, including operations manuals.<\/p>\n
The other dairies were rebranded. Andrew Lane was worried about that, but he says there was no pushback. \u201cThere was none at all; it was all in our head!\u201d<\/p>\n
Denise Lane puts a myth to bed that the blue-and-gold colours were a nod to their Otago heritage. Not at all, she says \u2013 they represent night and day.<\/p>\n
The duopoly disruptors?<\/p>\n
Matt Lane says there is no one \u201csilver bullet\u201d to compete against the supermarkets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need the foundations to be able to compete, whether it\u2019s ourselves, whether it\u2019s The Warehouse, whether it\u2019s a new player coming in. More competition in this space helps us, even if we\u2019re not the leader in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo we want to grow? Yes, absolutely. The only way I can see it happening, though, is through the existing set-ups.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very hard for any player to sit there and go, I\u2019m going to open opposite a Pak\u2019nSave and compete. It\u2019s just not going to happen. There\u2019s not the brand presence. There\u2019s not the pockets to be able to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve grown organically over time. We\u2019ve utilised the conversion of some Four Square stores to be able to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo start creating competition, I think one of the most important things is removing the restraints of trade on the duopoly stores. If someone is currently operating a Four Square and they want to convert or go independent, there should be no barriers for them to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lane points out there\u2019s not a lack of brands in New Zealand, it\u2019s a commonality of ownership.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you had Pak\u2019nSave, Fresh Choice, New World, Woolworths and Four Square all competing against each other, it would actually be quite a competitive marketplace and they\u2019d all try and take each other\u2019s market share. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhereas what we\u2019ve got is quite a complacent duopoly where everyone just plays in their own space … \u201d<\/p>\n
Lane also points out that for every day that the status quo remains, the duopoly grows stronger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re opening new stores, they\u2019re creating a better footprint, they\u2019re cementing brand awareness.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompetitors are getting more and more nervous. It\u2019s one thing to come out and go, we\u2019re going to fix the supermarket industry \u2013 that happened in 2021. We\u2019re now in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy discussion to MBIE [the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment] was there\u2019s been nothing given to me that has improved my business and my ability to compete that wasn\u2019t available to me in 2021. So we\u2019re four years deep and I don\u2019t have one tangible thing I can point to say, \u2018This is helping me grow and succeed\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then you go, \u2018Who is going to take the risk and why would they take the risk in the New Zealand market?\u2019 Bit different in the States or Australia, given the population size and density. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut there needs to be a genuine motivation or genuine support to actually be able to encourage people to do that.\u201d <\/p>\n
After first interviewing Lane in early August, I went back to him this week for an update. \u201cNo public announcement has benefited us to increasing competition, however what is encouraging is the key components that will improve competition are still being worked though and considered.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a wait-and-see, but there is still a lot of resource being allocated to increasing competition and I\u2019m hopeful something will eventuate.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Ferris wheel that hasn\u2019t stopped<\/p>\n
For all their success, Andrew and Denise Lane remain remarkably grounded \u2013 they are thrilled to see new generations of families in their franchise stores coming through the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I see it as a major success story,\u201d Andrew Lane says. \u201cI probably see it more as something that we just wanted to achieve and just kept on achieving it to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says when the business entered its franchising structure in 1990, it was with the intention of mentoring and \u201chelping other people enjoy a business that we both thoroughly enjoyed, and to grow like that\u201d.<\/p>\n
Denise Lane adds: \u201cIt was a case of long, hard hours. I guess we never thought it was going to get to where we are now.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like a Ferris wheel \u2013 when you got on the ride, you couldn\u2019t get off it until it stopped. It has not stopped yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disclaimer: Night \u2019n Day recently sponsored the NZ Herald\u2019s Great NZ Road Trip project. This article is an independent editorial story.<\/p>\n
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand\u2019s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sisters Bridget Stevens, left, and Rebecca Excell own the Winton Night \u2019n Day store – Bridget has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[46871,17236,806,46330,1647,138,298,198,7471,30609,65797,136559,7224,5972,25137,6435,30610,77695,30608,13687,71,21436,42,28162,702,130,30607,3805,111,139,2551,69,3240,659,1436,12000,24035,65796,653,97,30606,131,1361,8229,136560,61,102,2963],"class_list":["post-229178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-46871","tag-17236","tag-as","tag-blocks","tag-breaking","tag-business","tag-butter","tag-can","tag-charts","tag-corner","tag-currie","tag-cutprice","tag-dairy","tag-day","tag-disrupt","tag-does","tag-duopoly","tag-familyowned","tag-familyrun","tag-franchise","tag-from","tag-grocery","tag-headlines","tag-hold","tag-it","tag-more","tag-n","tag-network","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-recently","tag-retailer","tag-rise","tag-rose","tag-selling","tag-shayne","tag-stores","tag-supermarket","tag-sure","tag-than","tag-that","tag-they","tag-thirdbiggest","tag-to","tag-with","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}