Take the store opening programmes of new retail arrivals to these shores with a pinch of salt.

When asked the question ‘How many stores do you anticipate opening?’, a retailer’s usual answer is: ‘We aim for around 100 in the next five years or so.’

This is duly reported, and from testing the water with perhaps a single pilot store, it turns out that the outfit in question has ambitions to be a major player in a market in which it is probably unknown.

Of late, we’ve seen Bunnings, Smiggle and Typo all turning up in the UK from Down Under. The latter has revealed that it plans to open, yes, 100 stores in the next five to 10 years.

“In reality, nobody – from the chief executive to the person manning the till in the first UK store – will have any idea about what is achievable”

This does sound a mite ambitious, given that the website of CottonON Group (Typo’s parent company) states that Typo was born in Oz in 2009, and now has 145 stores in 10 countries.

On this reckoning, its proposed growth curve for the UK seems rapid.

Round number

Without being overly harsh, the plan to become a substantial chain looks like an appeal to property agents to step forward with suitable sites and at a price that makes profitable trading possible.

This kind of statement has more to do with a solid round number, plucked out of the air, than actual plans.

In reality, nobody – from the chief executive to the person manning the till in the first UK store – will have any idea about what is achievable.

Hope springs eternal in retail and nobody looking at how many stores to open in a particular market is going to err on the side of caution when talking of where they’d like to be in a few years’ time – it’s about attracting investment.

What matters, however, is what shoppers think of the proposition, and many 100-store dreams have foundered on the rocky shores of UK consumer sentiment.

Or, to put it another way, new stores and outposts of overseas chains in the UK are always interesting to assess.

But anything that is said about store numbers should always be taken with a very large pinch of salt.

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