Myer shares savaged, CEO Olivia Wirth doubles down on exclusive fashion labels
By Jessica Yun
Myer will double down and invest in its languishing sass & bide, Marcs and David Lawrence brands that helped drive profits 26 per cent lower as it seeks to extract better margins from exclusive brands and drum up stronger customer loyalty.
New chief executive Olivia Wirth, the former Qantas loyalty boss, on Friday unveiled her first set of Myer full-year results, which showed that total sales declined by 2.9 per cent, and she signalled a focus on being more hands-on with those brands.
Myer shares tumbled after chief executive Olivia Wirth released the company’s full-year results. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
“They have been managed at arm’s-length, and it’s an opportunity for us to rethink and restructure the way these businesses are run,” Wirth told this masthead.
Myer will close 10 of sass & bide’s 14 standalone stores and will instead establish concession stores for the brand.
Investors were unimpressed with the department chain’s full-year figures and update, sending its share price more than 10 per cent lower just before midday.
Myer also intends to chase younger, more fashion-conscious customers, who are less driven by discounting, and to sharpen promotions to make them more relevant to the customer.
Sass & bide’s Bondi boutique is one of the stores that will be closing down. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Myer’s sales were flat for the 2024 financial year as Australian shoppers continued to pare back their discretionary spending.
Profits have declined to $52.6 million, down from $71.1 million the year before, with about half of the slide due to the underperformance of sass & bide, Marcs and David Lawrence, which the department store was looking to sell before Wirth chose to keep them.
Group comparable sales ticked up just 0.4 per cent for the year, with total sales declining 2.9 per cent to just under $3.3 million, as store closures in Brisbane, Frankston, and Werribee affected sales.
Despite the lower sales figures, Myer is recruiting and retaining customers: loyalty program Myer One had a 4.8 per cent uptick in active members to 4.4 million, with 706,000 new members joining in the 2024 financial year. More than half of these were under 35.
Shoppers also turned online to make purchases, pushing Myer’s online sales 2 per cent higher to $704 million. More than one in five (21.6 per cent) of items purchased from Myer are now sold online.
More to come
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