Myer struggles with new realities
To hear it from Bernie Brookes, Myer's flat performance over the past three years has been mostly self-inflicted.
The retail environment's been poor, no doubt, but the department store chain's chief executive refers to frugal shopping habits as "the new norm".
Online competition and the arrival of international fashion houses have been factors, too. Then there's the makeover of traditional rival David Jones under a new owner.
"(It's) encouraged us to strengthen our game and hence consistently spending more money in stores, improving our service, our loyalty program so you get ready for any competitor by making sure the house is in good order," Mr Brookes told _WestBusiness _.
That's included the closure of five stores, refurbishment of 24 - including Booragoon's Garden City - and exiting categories such as entertainment and white goods. "It's had a pretty dramatic effect," Mr Brookes says. "We've caused our sales to be reasonably flat."
More dramatic has been the impact on net profits, progressively declining from $163 million in fiscal year 2011 to $98 million in FY2014.
The chief executive says most of the upheaval is now behind Myer. "We've got clean air going forward and therefore we're quite confident that there'll be some sales growth over the next few quarters."
Part of that picture is the opening this week of a store in Joondalup, Myer's first new outlet in the State in about 20 years.
The 12,000sqm space at Lakeside Joondalup brings Myer's WA portfolio back to six stores following the closure of Fremantle early last year.
While comparable store sales have held their own in the State, topline sales have suffered despite three quarters of Fremantle customers gravitating to other Myer outlets.
Mr Brookes describes the northern suburbs locale and its 100,000 catchment population with above-average incomes as perfect for the retailer.
"It provides a really opportunity to get a customer we're not able to satisfy at the moment," he says. Joondalup also becomes the third Myer store nationally to include a one-stop customer service centre entitled The Hub. Most staff will be armed with iPads to provide what Mr Brookes calls the "endless aisle" concept of offering products that aren't in the store.
He trumpets Myer's collection of exclusive brands such as Charlie Brown and Wayne Cooper - and a skew towards youth brands at Joondalup - as providing the pulling power for customers.
In this regard, he rules out following the private brand strategy being pursued by David Jones under South Africa's Woolworths Holding.
"We'd rather ensure that we've got a good quality product at a value price rather than be the cheapest in the market by selling generic products," he says.
As well as heightened competition, the impact of foreign players Zara, H&M and Topshop Topman has brought benefits for Myer, Mr Brookes argues.
"It has a 'bees round a honey pot' mentality and it brings more customers into the city centre, where we benefit from that," he says. "As long as they locate near you, they're not bad at all."
