Biggles wrote:Where I am in Geelong, the MD store was in constant discount cycles from 20% to 60% in a vain attempt to bring people through the door. To say nothing of the guy running the show in there who was not faintly interested in customers until they reached for their wallet! There has never been a time when the Geelong store windows was not plastered with discount signs! The stock inside was poor: narrow, colours and styles that do not appeal to the masses, much less odd fitting and a long-term perception among browsers of being pricey and out of sync with the outdoor market. A lot of distractive must-have 'trinkets' didn't help. Have a look at Rays and Anaconda: regular whole-floor stock turn-overs to keep it fresh and up to date has been a key success for both stores.
MD attempted to put itself above others by trumpeting its home-brand — Mountain Designs-branded shellwear especially. Poorly designed, oddly sized and very, very expensive for what it is. I was astounded to be asked $690 for a shell jacket when it felt like rice paper to me. Really, nothing in MD was unique that could not be found the same or similar elsewhere (e.g. in Little Bourke Street), and sometimes cheaper at that.
I am not a one-time visitor to the Outdoor Strip of Little Bourke Street. I was around when Paddy Pallin was a tiny store (and doing very, very well) in the 1980s. Many others have come and gone, and MD is but a conspicuous casualty of shifting retail dynamics, mores and values which also affect the likes of David Jones and Myer, among others.
I think the outdoor market here in Australia is too small to support so many players, and proferring a perception that expensive clothing is required to go for a day walk in the Otways! I predict there will be more casualties, especially looking at MacPac, which trades well in New Zealand, but not as well here. Still, its range is narrow and designs dated.
CraigVIC wrote:You see Kathmandu jackets everywhere in Geelong. You see them on the hike to the supermarket. You see them at the Auskick basecamp. Kathmandu is successful in a totally different way to Mountain Designs.
Dexter wrote:I can’t seem to read that article. It wants a login? Anyone have a link that heads directly to it?
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crollsurf wrote:"You know I probably might have mislead everyone when I said 1 in 3 shops will close but I promise you... the accounts I'm showing you are ridgee dig". Yeah right. Looking for a sucker to get lumbered with there debts is my guess.
Biggles wrote:Have a look at Rays and Anaconda: regular whole-floor stock turn-overs to keep it fresh and up to date has been a key success for both stores.
CraigVIC wrote:Well, we are way off topic now, but that is a very generous description of Rays north geelong closing which was part of a major restructure of the business including multiple store closures and remodeling the stores in the old format, which were performing badly, to the new 'adventure' format. I must say, last time I was in there I was surpised how much hiking gear they had in terms of filtration, hiking tents, lightweight mats etc things I didn't expect to see.
Biggles wrote:Dexter wrote:I can’t seem to read that article. It wants a login? Anyone have a link that heads directly to it?
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The item is behind a paywall, therefore (ta-da!) you need to be a Subcriber and pay the Courier Mail some pretty pennies just to read a bit of recycled guff...
But the OP did type the text out ad verbatim so there probably is no need to see the article.
rsawyer wrote:Following on from the post about Rays, this just came through :
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business ... 299c09be88
Super Retail Group will buy New Zealand outdoor brand Macpac for $A135 million.
The ASX-listed retailer says it will call on existing debt facilities to acquire 54 Macpac stores across Australia and NZ, and consolidate its Rays outlets under the Macpac brand.
Gadgetgeek wrote:Looking at the students I work with, those who's folks have money have Katmandu gear, those who's parents don't have a lot of black wolf and denalli (anaconda) and those who's parents know what's what have a mish mash of hand-me downs, or "just good enough for this trip" style gear, likely not expecting it to be looked after. We rarely saw MD branded gear. So they weren't a hit with the fashion-sports crowd like Katmandu. So far what rays has for listings don't fill me with much confidence, looks like more of the brand-flipping that they were doing before. It would be nice to have a mid-range REI sort of no-frills type shop, but the midrange here is so blown out with junk brands that it would be hard to rise above in the average consumer's mind. Perhaps the idea of a single brand store is on its way out?
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