Last week it was banking. This week it is 24-hour trading ­ not to mention healthcare, insurance, estate agencies, home delivery and even concessionary departments selling tropical fish. The multiples' armoury of services to be used in the struggle to be top dog knows no bounds. Thus, a Martian visiting these islands during the past few months could be forgiven for assuming our grocery chains control the UK media machine, harnessing their supreme powers to switch it on and off at will. Even the antics of the Royal family are being swept from the front pages of the tabloids by the goings on at Tesco, Sainsbury, Safeway and Asda. But therein lies the new success story for the retailing majors. Supermarkets are, in media parlance, "sexy" these days. So it hardly takes much ingenuity for an enterprising multiple marketing director to manipulate a hungry hack with news of his latest in-store initiative. Despite some analysts' eagerness to fuel another all-out high street conflict where price is the principal weapon, it is in the services sector where the real clash of the titans will be decided. Twenty-four hour trading by the bigger units would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But a realisation of changing population trends, with shiftworkers and students in the major population centres offering nocturnal sales opportunities, is transforming the thinking in head offices. The trend, admittedly, will never be a nationwide concept for the UK. But as Tesco, Safeway and Asda are finding, there are key regions where it could soon become a profitable feature. Unaffiliated independents and symbol group retailers in the focused areas have for years dreaded a multiple move into the true "open all hours" philosophy. However, enterprising smaller grocers in Scotland are responding by installing their own cash machines, and even newsagents are selling travel insurance in a bid to increase footfall. But copycats are on a loser. Only the original and forward thinking will survive the battle on the services front. {{NEWS}}

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