Retail News CRM

Tag: Autstralia

  • Superdry opens Queenstown store with huge range of winter gear

    Superdry opens Queenstown store with huge range of winter gear

    Sports fashion brand Superdry said its newly opened store in Queenstown offers the largest range of snow gear across the Tasman region.

    Superdry’s new 200sqm Aotearoa store, the second in New Zealand, is split in two levels offering men’s and women’s clothing and accessories.

    The Queenstown store also offers a selection of Superdry Snow, which features fashion-forward, technical alternatives to traditional snow gear.

    “Superdry Snow, introduced globally nearly six years ago, has been heralded as the perfect fashionable alternative to the traditionally generic adventure wear and has seen double-digit YOY sales growth globally,” the retailer stated.

    Martin Matthews, CEO of Brand Collective which holds the license for Superdry across Australia and New Zealand, said the adventure spirit that is synonymous with Queenstown and its alignment to their brand is what ultimately brought them to the area.

    “Superdry was the natural next step,” Matthews said.

    He added that while the brand has yet to confirm any additional sites in the country, New Zealand presents a significant opportunity for the brand, and there are broad plans to expand.

    Superdry opened its first store in the country in Auckland’s Queen Street shopping district last April.

    The 193sqm store is split into two levels, with the menswear department on the first level and a glass staircase leading consumers to the womenswear section on the second level. The store also offers the brand’s Superdry Snow collection.

  • Esprit to close down Australia and New Zealand stores

    Esprit to close down Australia and New Zealand stores

    Esprit is to close its Australian and New Zealand stores after years of mounting losses. The Esprit Australia and New Zealand network comprises 67 directly managed retail stores, including 38 concessions in department stores and 13 discount outlets.

    The announcement came just a few hours after the embattled fast-fashion retailer warned shareholders its third-quarter performance was “well below expectation” and several days after it announced it would not renew the lease on its Causeway Bay flagship store.

    In a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Florence Ng Wai Yin, Esprit’s company secretary, said divesting the ANZ operations will allow management to concentrate efforts and resources in developing other markets in Asia, singling out China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, “with profitable growth opportunities for the future” and avoid incurring further losses in Australasia.

    In the year to June 30 last year, Esprit Australia and New Zealand reported sales of HK$297 million, (US$37.8 million) which works out at a weekly per-store average of just US$10,850.

    It accounted for less than 2 per cent of the group’s total global revenue.

    Esprit says closing the stores down will cost between HK$150 million and HK$200 million.

    Executive director and group CFO of Esprit Holdings in Hong Kong, Thomas Tang, said the company had undertaken “intensive efforts” in past years to turn the Esprit Australasia business around, to no avail.

    Stephen Newnham, director of Esprit Australia and New Zealand described the group’s decision as “unfortunate but unavoidable”.

    The company expects to close all of its stores by the end of the year and will continue to honour gift cards until then.

    Strategy to be sped up

    The closure marks just one step in a promised acceleration of a strategic plan to improve top-line sales and reduce running expenses.

    “Given the challenging sales performance in the first nine months of the fiscal year, the group remains cautious about its expectations for the rest of the year,” said company secretary Florence Ng Wai Yin in a stock exchange filing.

    Group-wide sales in the nine months to March 31 were down 10.9 per cent year on year, to HK$11.8 billion (US$1.5 billion). The retail selling space was rationalised by 9.2 per cent over the same period.

    More worryingly, Esprit’s sales fell 13.8 per cent in the three months to March 31.

    Offline retail sales totalled HK$1.404 billion during the quarter, down 17.1 per cent, while online sales fell 11.4 per cent to $1.09 billion.

    Yin said the offline sales drop was the result of fewer sales points and unseasonably cold weather in Europe which aggravated the decline in customer traffic to stores.

    Online revenue in Asia Pacific declined due to management’s decision to reduce discounting in order to enhance profitability.

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  • Rohlig opens new warehouse facility in Sydney

    Rohlig opens new warehouse facility in Sydney

    Due to continued success in the Australasian markets, International freight forwarding firm Rohlig Logistics, is continuing the expansion plans of its contract logistics divisions with the opening of a new 6000 sqm warehouse in Sydney.

    The new warehouse has been equipped with the latest in warehousing and logistics technology, including as a sunken dock with a seven metre in-ground hoist capable of handling 14 tonnes of air freight. Additionally, the facility will be able to handle up to 4000 pallet spaces, encompassing every element of the supply chain, from warehousing and freight, to contract logistics.

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  • Qantas Freight has been appointed as the carrier to transport milk

    Qantas Freight has been appointed as the carrier to transport milk

    Qantas Freight has been appointed as the exclusive carrier to transport Van Dairy’s Tasmanian milk to Ningbo, China.

    Starting in the first half of 2017, Qantas Freight will operate a weekly Boeing 767-300 freighter flight from Hobart to Ningbo, carrying more than 50,000 litres of fresh milk. Qantas will look at increasing the frequency if there is additional demand.

    “There is a huge demand for fresh milk in China and the key to satisfying that demand is having a reliable freight partner with an established freighter network, infrastructure and support in China and expertise in handling fresh produce – Qantas provides that,” said Sean Shwe, managing director of Moon Lake Investments, parent company of Van Dairy. “Establishing this trade bridge is an exciting venture for our dairy company, Van Dairy who produce Van milk, and opens the door for access for other Tasmanian producers of fresh perishables such as seafood, fruit and vegetables to air freight their produce on this direct flight to China. It will be a game changer for Tasmania, and we are proud to be leading the charge.”

    According to Qantas, local distributors will truck the milk to supermarkets and convenience stores in Ningbo and Beijing. Moon Lake Investments has plans to extend the dairy’s market reach to Shanghai, Hangzhou and other Chinese cities after the product is established.

    “We’ve been flying freight between Australia and Greater China for more than 30 years, and currently offer freight capacity on 40 flights a week,” said Alison Webster, executive manager of Qantas Freight and Qantas Catering Group. “This includes five dedicated freighter aircraft services, carrying a mix of perishables such as chilled meat, seafood, dairy, fruit and vegetables as well as general cargo. Over the past three years Qantas Freight has developed particularly strong capabilities in dairy export which, with its short-life, requires close collaboration to ensure on-time delivery and quality control throughout the supply chain. We’re really pleased to partner with Van Dairy to help meet the booming demand for fresh Tasmanian milk in China – it’s the ultimate milk run.”

    Qantas currently operates passenger flights from Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to Hong Kong, as well as from Sydney to Shanghai. It is also scheduled to launch a flight between Sydney and Beijing in January 2017.

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