David Jones Closes Stores It Never Really Should've Opened

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

David Jones has announced it will close 19 stores this week, following an extensive strategic review that reportedly included someone finally walking around the shopping centres they were in.

The struggling retailer is understood to have identified several locations where demand for $280 linen shirts with a little horse on it and beige chinos for the man with the amble caboose had been substantially overestimated.

"Yeah, look, opening an upmarket department store in a suburb where people queued three hours for an American burger franchise was probably a bit ambitious," said one soon to be retrenched manager.

"In hindsight, perhaps we had the same endless growth mentality of most Australian companies. We should've just been a nice place for well-heeled Protestants to buy their boardshorts. A place for the fancy old lady to buy her sliced ham and get the Christmas presents wrapped while she enjoyed a glass of Bollinger in the Food Hall. The go-to destination for international students to launder money through the luxury good retailers. Instead, we chased the jet ski owner. We fawned over the V8 Supercar enthusiast. That was foolish."

Another manager said the warning signs had been apparent for years.

"We should've made changes when we saw White Fox pop up out of nowhere. They are the future of retail. It shows that most consumers don't care about the welfare of garment workers. Or shops for that matter. They have no shops and their hoodie division could buy and sell us ten times over."

Sources familiar with the expansion strategy confirmed the original business case relied heavily on the suburb having "a Westfield" and a new apartment development named after a New York borough or district.

Management remains confident a smaller flagship store network will better serve its core customer as they typically live in flagship suburbs.

More to come.