And these are the ones that's reported (this week/last week/today). Autodom gone 400 Retail Adventures - 600+ Banksia - ??? Thing is, maybe many smaller shops rely on these bigger guys to survive, like sandwich shops etc...
Just heard on the radio, Hills Holdings to also slash jobs. And just read this now of http://www.news.com.au/business/bre...s-in-restructure/story-e6frfkur-1226508500487. Ted Pretty is the CEO???? Wasn't he the one involved in investing telstra's cash trove with PCCW? Now that was a smart move. Don't know how much blame can be pointed to the fact of the high ozzy$ for so many manufacturing / retailers going out of business.
Every time I hear someone talking about how Australians are finally liberated by the internet from paying expensive Australian prices for things and can now easily bypass Australian businesses and buy them cheaply overseas I am reminded that Australian businesses are also now liberated from paying expensive Australian workers and can replace them with workers that they can source cheaply overseas.
Interestingly though, when you follow this line of logic in assuming we really are a global economy here in terms of how we conduct business and trade, I'm still amused that people will also assume that no matter what happens abroad, we'll be right here... because it's different. I think that no matter what we do domestically, when things go sour abroad we'll feel the full effects too. In 2008 we had a 20 billion public surplus. 4 years later, we're dabbling around 250 billion in the red. - and that's just the public debt... Think about it... just how different are we in the grand scheme things & how will we be affected (as a nation) when it all goes to poo abroad?
I'm actually quite sick and tired of consumerism in general. It is simply the greed and cheapness of the masses driving businesses out of business or overseas just to compete with the demand for ever cheaper prices no matter how unreasonable (even Chinese manufacturers that live from contract to contract end up cutting wages to meet price demands). This simply cannot go on forever. In an economy where no real value is attached to anything and the consumer has been made king you have a seething mass of cheap, selfish, fickle materialists who want bottom dollar on everything driving everything into the ground. What was cheap enough six months ago is no longer cheap enough. People want their $12 toasters, sub $150 24" monitors and sub $20 16GB USB flash drives without a care as to how such prices are made possible or if such a cheap consumerist economy is even sustainable. We know damn well it isn't.
that's capitalism. I've bought a few electronic dodads lately for some 40% cheaper than the cheapest available online here, give or take a bit, from overseas landed on my doorstop. Can't see why the australian internet sites can't come much closer unless the middle man is screwing them.
The Australian sites will cut prices as low as they can in order to compete, but they are basically screwed because they cannot compete with overseas suppliers who don't have to pay the business costs that Australian's face. It will come to a head in the next few years, the Australian businesses will close and lay off their staff. We will become a service economy and our shopping strips will be composed of food outlets, cafe's, barber shops, tax agents, accountants and $2.00 shops.
don't buy that myself. Costs to pack and ship something wouldn't be that much cheaper than oz. Certainly not 40 to 50% worth. has to be the middle man or excessive mark up I'd of thought but I've not worked in retail though.
I have a retail store but we manufacture most of what we sell there here in Australia, but we are the exception rather than the rule. I was speaking to a commercial agent a few weeks back and his observation is that retail stores are closing and the tenants that subsequently lease them are service based like tax agents. It's complicated, if retailers were making loads of profit they would stay open, but what I am hearing from the shops that are closing is that they are tired of working far too hard for too little return and they are fed up with the onerous rents and staff costs. Another issue is that they are also tired of being display stores for the internet where people go in and try things on to see if they like them and to get their size before going off to buy online from overseas. Some retailers do gouge, but most do not they are simply trying to make a profit margin that allows the owner to put food on the table and pay rent. Also don't forget that the price you pay from the USA or England is not the price that English or Americans pay - The VAT in England is 20% I think, and each state in the USA has a state tax that US residents pay just as Australian retailers have to add GST to the selling price. So your 40%-50% saving from a store in the UK does not reflect the actual retail price in that country. As I mentioned earlier, if retail in Australia was making mega profits then they would be able to drop their prices to be competitive with overseas sellers and still make a reasonable profit. This is not happening, they are instead closing and laying off their workers, so clearly they were not making that much profit. I think the 2013 will be the year that we see the real beginning of Australia following the American experience where you can walk down a previously busy shopping strip and see many empty shops, and previously up-market streets being taken over by $2.00 shops and op-shops.
A huge example of what is going on in Australia is Qantas. If you can get a return ticket to Malaysia for $350.00 with Air Asia then Qantas cannot compete. Yet is Qantas gouging? No, it is not, it is losing money hand over fist in it's international division. It simply cannot afford to operate in Australia in 2012 when carriers from Asia do not suffer the same expenses. The hypocrisy to me is that Australians bypass Qantas and fly Air Asia because it's cheaper, ie: they choose the cheap overseas option. Then when Qantas wants to do exactly the same thing and choose the cheap overseas option for it's staff and maintenance and catering Australians get all outraged because "Australian workers are entitled to secure high paid jobs". It is the same thing that is happening in Australian retail and manufacturing - Aussies won't patronise Australian businesses but they demand that these Australian businesses employ them. It will be educational to see how this unfolds over the next 3 years.
We have turned into service based industry since a long time ago, but now with mining in decline and manufacturing shrinking, the conversion rate is accelerating. Your observation on dying shopping strip is also spot on. I have seen this happen and it is still happening. Lots of fish n chips, charcoal chicken, $2 shop, op shops coming up.
Well, as I've said, I think its a middle man issue really myself, no competition at that level in Oz is probably a killer for shops. Isn't that where the likes of Kogan and Zare are making their gravy? The idea its rent and staff costs don't add up to me, the tax is issue would pretty much cancel itself out as well I'd of thought. The stuff is coming from the US not sure what they pay in tax. edit the likes of the UK and the US would have the volume for more competition at the wholesale level than us. I've heard for the sort of stuff I'm interested in the big shops in the US can deal with the manufacturers directly to some extent.
The US has a different tax rate in each state, usually around 8-9%. Some counties and cities add a sales tax on top of the state sales tax. US advertisements do not show sales tax, you have to calculate it yourself to know what you will pay at the till. The middle man (wholesale layer) is a big issue for many Australian retailers. The good wholesalers warehouse stock for immediate delivery and provide backup support and rapid warranty service or exchange and advertise and promote the brand, the bad wholesalers (and there are a lot of them) are definitely nothing more than "middle men" who just have an office and order products from overseas after the retailer orders from them. They are a pox on society, they do neither the retailer of the customer any good.
