David Jones on brink of collapse

[leo25]

Major Australian retailer David Jones's days could be numbered, as shopping centre Westfield confirms the department store chain has not paid rent since September and is in breach of its contracts.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-11-04/david-jones-could-collapse-behind-on-westfield-rent/107345094

Followed by Myer then Harvey Norman.

Australian large retailers are living in the past. They think people are too stupid to use the internet and figure out what the real price is. They keep playing these stupid games where they have 40% "sales" every few months. Just charge the real price and be done with it. People will either wait for the "sale" price or buy it online today for the real price, most people will not pay their over inflated prices.

 

[ozcopper]

Yes, a lot of jobs will disappear in the near future!

 

[precious roar]

Unfortunately, people are generally too stupid to work out the costs of employing people and having an actual shop location creates greater expenses that the online retailers simply don't have.

 

[leo25]

Unfortunately, people are generally too stupid to work out the costs of employing people and having an actual shop location creates greater expenses that the online retailers simply don't have.

Naa, everyone can work that one out. Just most people are not willing to pay a big premium for a sub par shopping experience. Australia is terrible at customer service.

 

[leo25]

Obviously there are two other big factors that is leading to the Australian retail downturn.

1) The high debts due to our over inflated property market are making most people poorer.
2) The largest group of new migrants generally don’t like spending in retail. Why buy new when you can get something 2nd hand at 1/10th the price on marketplace.

Also the lack of product innovation isn't helping. The only thing new in tech today is IoT slop & higher prices.

 

[Jislizard]

Harvey Norman and its chairman Gerry Harvey strongly and repeatedly lobbied the Australian Federal Government to introduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on low-value imported online sales. They saw it coming and rather than offer a better price they just made everything overseas 10% more expensive. no love lost. But job losses are never good.