Recently I have been observing lots of retail stores are either closing/closed or being sold. All the stores in my nearest shopping center has been swapped recently. Even one of my local independent grocery store is put on sale even with good ongoing footfall.
What's going on? Is this sign of dire economy situation?
How is the situation in your area? Is the business being eaten up by recent online boom and offline businesses are struggling?
Up? It's down like 24% from January.
Still up if you have diamond hands
@Poor Ass: You'd need diamond arms and legs if you've been holding your air gapped wallet up above your head for the past 3 months.
Not any better for online stores, a totally unfair playing field for small businesses. Suppliers and distributors offer bigger discounts to large companies, and shipping carriers provide them with better rates.
100% agree, were in this akward state where brick and morter is dying, but instead of busineses saving rent money moving online That rent money its now just going to online retailers like amazon, ebay etc, who keep just hiking up prices and have fees on every single transaction… This can easily work out being probably more expensive that brick and mortar. I reckon this is why theres not as many good deals at xmas and boxing day
Eh? How many Australian online widget shops do you need? If you move online the competition is GREATER. The money you "save" you now have to not earn just to survive.
Also: https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/amazon-is-quietly-turni… Amazon is quietly turning into a major rival for Coles and Woolworths. So yeah nar.
"Blaming" economies of scale is "blaming" efficiency is stupid.
My personal view is Australia were quite behind other countries in online shopping pre-Covid (at least comparing to UK). With the lockdowns, people got more comfortable ordering online and getting everything delivered. Stores adapted to this too and widened their offerings. From there on, it's difficult to go back to retail store shopping when you can have most things same/next day delivered for cheaper. There's also the introduction of direct-from-China marketplaces that will have taken a huge chunk out of local retail sales.
Remember around 12 years ago or so when stores like Myer only allowed online sales during business hours? Australia has always been behind.
There's also the introduction of direct-from-China marketplaces that will have taken a huge chunk out of local retail sales.
They have always existed and there are significantly less stores now than the golden years of cheap stuff from China (~2011-2014). The difference now is that instead of waiting 4-8 weeks you can get stuff delivered within 1-2 weeks for free.
My personal view is Australia were quite behind other countries in online shopping pre-Covid (at least comparing to UK).
I could be wrong about this but I have a feeling back in like 2018/2019, ecommerce sales made up like 20-30% of big retailers revenue in places like the UK, Canada and USA but in Australia it was still way behind at like 10-15% with the odd retailer doing 20% - I have a feeling I read this in a Wesfarmers full year update to shareholders as it was talking about the Officeworks brand and their extraordinary share of online sales for the brand. Or I could be completely making this up.
But Covid was like an overnight catchup.
Did you shop at any of those stores?
Yes, my wife used to buy from our local NoniB store and I used to goto local fruit and veggies store which is closed now :(
Wouldn't call NoniB independent…
NoniB is linked with Rivers which closed down 2 days ago.
Just knowing that your wife shops at NoniB tells me a lot about your demographic. Soon you will be moving to Millers Fashion Club (or is it just Millers now?)
nonib lol
Our economy is literally riding on the NDIS's money printing back - we should be heavily in a recession right now.
If you're in private you're getting fcuked hard.
NDIS is such a rort, they should scale it back.
Libs changed how it was subsedised, It used to be like bulk billing where there were rules around what can be covered, for what service and what price range, or it wouldnt be subsedised at all..
Liberals changed it to be a fixed amount and so of course every NDIS provider just upped their prices include the max rebate amount possible, + what ever they were already charging.
The providers certainly do overcharge. Then there's the cost of the occupational therapist who has to write up the report to access funding for the overpriced item/service. Often it's people who could easily just go out and pay for it themselves but want it for free from the government.
@JIMB0: They did add a bunch last year, just takes time to come into play and they still probably need more. It should never have been turned into a rourt by Abott, I think it was meant to be a hand grenade to the next (assumed Labor) government thus building something to argue about but then scomo won the unwinable so it had time to establish as a scam. Now fixes are difficult as so many people get the handout that it is like fixing housings tax treatment where no one wants to loose that voter base.
That's my reading of the situation at least.
@Dsiee: Ahem, Julia Gillard launched that hand granade with no forward plan or funding. Abbot got lumped with a piece of legislation with which to hit the ground running and make it up as he went along whilst rummaging for funding up unicorn's bottoms.
So what happens with all the people who genuinely need those supports but aren't, in the eyes of the government, "disabled enough" for dsp?
There plenty who need support that don't get whilst there's able bodied people getting mobility scooters because they're too lazy to walk to the shops.
@JIMB0: Doesn't justify cutting it to those who need it. It's actually very hard to get NDIS funding right now.
@JIMB0: Perhaps educate yourself on what it actually takes to get onto the NDIS. I’m so sick of people like you spouting this uneducated bs.
@JIMB0: That's strange, I know someone who works in the industry who said that was just a made up grievance shared by people at the pub who reckon the govt is spending their taxes on the wrong things.
I guess both our insider contacts cancel each other out?
@Crow K: NDIS Rort is the new “women driving range rovers with 5 baby bonuses and child support payments from 5 different Dads”. It’s just a dog whistle to make people who are victims of conservative governments shift the blame to progressive policies.
@Muppet Detector: An occupational therapist. There's an alarming number of people who come in and lie about things in an attempt to get a report that allows them to access funding from the government. Some of them should peruse a career in acting.
There's an alarming number of people who come in and lie about things in an attempt to get a report that allows them to access funding from the government. Some of them should peruse a career in acting.
Here's hoping the OT's are skilled enough to spot the cheaters and professional enough to allocate any resources only to those who genuinely qualify.
I've heard of psychologists diagnosing a child with ASD and then "nudging them up" to be diagnosed as level two because level one doesn't get any funding but levels two and three do.
Absolutely peed me off when I heard that and they were bragging about it, not even being subtle.
Hopefully some of these shysters who aren't doing the right thing eventually get caught and if not disqualified from practising, at least prevented from advocating for any public funding, payment, income or resources.
Also heard about a lady who was paying $30 an hour for a house cleaner. After she qualified for NDIS, she notified the cleaning company (some people can get cleaning in their package) and they increased her hourly rate to over $60 an hour - whatever the maximum limit is for NDIS.
Same lady, same house, same cleaner => doubled the hourly rate as soon as they learned it was NDIS.
@JIMB0: Can you link to ay source or evidence for the claim that people are getting mobility scooters because they're too lazy to walk to the shops? I know of just one person with a mobility scooter in my extended social circle, who can only stand very briefly and has been in a wheelchair for something like 15 years.
@JIMB0: JIMB0 on 19/03/2025 - 12:36
+1
There plenty who need support that don't get whilst there's able bodied people getting mobility scooters because they're too lazy to walk to the shops
I call BS
So what happens with all the people who genuinely need those supports but aren't, in the eyes of the government, "disabled enough" for dsp?
NDIS & DSP are two different things.
You can qualify for one but not the other and sometimes both.
DSP is a fortnightly payment made by the gov. To receive it, you have to have a qualifying disability that has received at least two years of medical treatment and it is now stable.
NDIS provides funding and support to eligible people with qualifying disabilities enabling them to live more independent lives and engage in their communities with a focus on individual needs and goals.
It was originally conceptualised as a source of funding for those inflicted with no fault disabilities - ie those who came by their disability as an act of God as opposed to at fault disabilities which resulted from various accidents that resulted in insurance payouts to fund any losses and future needs.
That's how it was sold to the States. That's what they agreed to when surrendering their state based systems for managing the needs for people with disabilities and that's what all three of the reports she commissioned said, but she disregarded all that, even the IPP report and then she scrambled through that misrepresented dog's shaved backside she called legislation when she learned that her days were numbered.
But hey, history does give her credit for introducing it. Just a shame that no one paid attention to what we were supposed to get and what she actually left us with.
no thank you.. my disabled daughter relies on it. she's already had much needed funding cut.
So, she did receive funding for some things.
May I ask what funding that affects her has been cut and how that now affects her?
What did she do before NDIS became available to her?
I knew a lady whose kid was allegedly "on the spectrum" but you wouldn't be able to tell it if you spoke to him or watched him interact with other kids or looked at his school reports and grades. They had NDIS paying for swimming lessons, soccer, private tutors all kind of extra-curricular activities that have nothing to do with with the alleged 'disability'. It's a big rort. I'm sure there are deserving people who need help from something like NDIS, but there are so many others who don't who are ruining for those who do.
They had NDIS paying for swimming lessons, soccer, private tutors all kind of extra-curricular activities that have nothing to do with with the alleged 'disability'. It's a big rort.
Report them. That is not how the funds are supposed to be used.
Example, if they want swimming lessons, they pay for the lessons, but the NDIS will pay for a support worker to help her access those lessons.
Private tutors are a definite no.
The parent must pay for the tutor, but NDIS will fund a support worker to help the child engage with the work.
The only exception to this is if it is an Educationsl Psychologist running the lesson, but these have to be specifically approved and attached to one of the set goals.
Same for soccer: must pay soccer fees, but can have support worker to help them engage.
As for "all sorts of extra curricular activities", not only is your friend cheating and committing insurance fraud, ASD level 2 doesn't get enough funding to pay for half of what you've listed.
If you're so offended, report them. They're committing insurance fraud.
I've heard of this happening, they're usually rather well off as well.
I've heard of this happening, they're usually rather well off as well.
That's actually not a big deal.
NDIS isn't income or asset tested.
As long as you have a qualifying disability, everyone gets relevant funding regardless of your wealth.
It's like real insurance, if you buy a policy and something happens which is covered by that policy, then your claim gets paid regardless of how much other wealth you have.
In that respect, this insurance policy works the same way except it's the government paying for our insurance policy as opposed to the individual paying for it out of their own pocket like PHI for example.
Around 2008, a lot of the insurance companies got fed up with the massive multi million dollar payouts the courts were awarding accident victims. These payouts were intended to finance the medical needs, lost income and any future needs they may need as a result of this accident (whether it was worker's comp or private accident).
The insurance companies declared that system as unsustainable and started pulling out of providing insurance, particularly personal injury insurance.
Were that to happen, we were about to have a whole heap of permanently disabled people who didn't have the funds or ability to access appropriate care for themselves.
During that same period, Aust signed some Human right treaty declaring we would make certain provisions for our disabled folks.
It was ratified some time in 2008, so we were now in a position where we really had to do something - no one really knew what though at that time.
A think tank from that posited that people with no fault disabilities were completely disadvantaged because there was no at fsult party to due for compensation to augment their ongoing care and lifestyle needs.
Think of a person who was born with their disability or became disabled following some illness etc. A person who faces formidable challenges and extraordinary costs and resources to access a quality of life that most Australians take for granted - and there is no one at fault - there is no one to blame and extract any kind of meaningful compensation - and you can't sue God.
Somehow from there, as the insurance companies left the table, all disabilities were grouped together regardless of whether they were no fault or at fault.
This paved the way for our Negligence Laws to get seriously overhauled and rewritten in many instances.
One significant change was the abolition of uncapped compensation payouts for disabilities arising from at fault causes/accidents. This was achieved by assigning a set or capped price to every injury and/or disability (eg loss of an entire thumb is valued about $15,000 as is loss of an entire penis and a vagina btw - fun fact) and further compensation was severely limited, restricted and in many cases, eradicated.
This went some way towards placating the personal injury insurers as their losses were now capped and were apparently within acceptable ranges so they came back to the table ready to insure the workforce and other at fault parties with the knowledge that the crippling payouts previously awarded were no longer an available source of funding.
With few exceptions, these long term at fault disabilities are now limited to compensation for the fact the accident happened with little to no regard for what long term repercussions may cost.
ENTER NDIS
Because everyone is equal before the law in Australia plus we just signed that new Hunan Rights treaty and Julia Gillard needing something HUGE to kick through the goal posts,
The at fault disabilities and the no fault disabilities were joined with the intention of treating every person with a qualifying disability equally.
Initially, this caused a lot of problems and disparity because each State was responsible for what resources they directed towards/allocated for disability and as such, the available resources differed significantly between the states and equality wasn't even a buzz word and we were falling spectacularly short of the Human Rights standards we very publicly agreed to implement.
The eyes of the world were literally on us. Everybody was watching us to see what we would do so after being so vocal about the necessity to adequately address the needs of the disabled, Ms Gillard really had no choice but to do something… she just had no idea what.
She commissioned at least three expert commissions, one of which (The IPP Report) underwent heavy scrutiny by numerous qualified stakeholders who ultimately extracted specific recommendations for consideration in correlation with the new negligence legislation and MS GILLARD ignored/disregarded every single representation and expert suggestion, she even ignored the input from the individual state health ministers whose disabled she was now preparing for.
She ignored every single person with any relevant knowledge, qualification or insight in a quest for a united legacy that she could quickly cobble together and push through unchallenged before she was removed from office.
She did create legislation that bought the personal injury lawyers back to the playground and she did propose that it be gradually rolled out achieving full efficacy by 2020.
What she didn't do was implement any kind of plan or vision for how the roll out would happen nor any projections for what the finished product would look like, who it would serve and what it would cost.
Similarly, she never provided any funding or budget for the incoming prime minister to utilise and she had already withdrawn any funds any of the individual states had available before disability moved away from the purview of the states and became a national interest.
So, we got the NDIS, but Ms Gillard left without providing any forward plan or anything to fund those plans with so the next govt had to implement what they could, rob Peter to pay Paul and make the whole lot of it up as they went along.
Bigger disaster than her cockeyed brain fart about giving schools $3million to build a shed.
@duluxe2000: Law school. My Negligence Law lecturer was one of the stakeholders who lead a team that examined the findings of the IPP report (and a bunch of honours students also got to participate) and she was also instrumental in the development of the new negligence legislation.
Autism is what is costing the NDIS.
My son is autistic and it is growing at such a rapid rate it is already crushing the NDIS, the school system and caused a massive shortage of therapists.
Initially they said it was because of the extra diagnosis due to identification but now that it is tipping at 4% of all children and even the most severe cases are growing just as rapidly which completely discounts the extra diagnosis theory, it's just growing.
At the end of the day the government now is looking into what the hell happened as to why it is growing so rapidly and they probably wont come to an answer for 10 years. At which point all of these system will have been completely crushed.
NDIS is such a sensitive topic. Everyone knows you have to control the cost but given one single legitimate case is mistreated, your political life is over. It will be all over the news and your oppositions will attack you fiercely.
The genie is out of the bottle, it's hard to control him. Whoever design this scheme (Bill Shorten) is irresponsible. Now noone wants to clean this mess.
It was Actually Julia Gillard who promised that NDIS would become immediately publicly available even though she never allocated any funds to finance it, not even for the first four years.
She neither allocated funds to finance her misinformed, under researched patch in the wall of the imaginary insurance crisis fallacy for even the first four years, where the person following her may find those funds or any kind of instructions about how to roll it out in some manner that was either beneficial or productive.
Thats $764.6b OVER THE NEXT DECADE
the NDIS is exploding and it's a huge cost at ~$46b a year = $460 billion OVER THE NEXT DECADE
We're literally spending more than 50% of our defence budget on support services. thats a huge burden on an economy (especially one that puts a relatively low proportion of income into defence).
23-24 NDIS growth rate is 18.9%. and if this number won't go down, over the decade, we have to spend $1405 bil for NDIS, may be it will be more than defense, aged care, medicare, Centrelink combined.
@duluxe2000: And if the gov manages to restrict the growth rate to 8% . It's 730 bil over the next decade.
I stand corrected.
Check again.
Or at least learn how to Google eh.
Keep in mind that before the introduction of NDIS, disability support was already being provided for by the individual states, so there was already some money to access. Ms Gillard just hijacked those funds and reallocated them for national expenditure.
Sure, the NDIS spend is absolutely huge, but it's disingenuous to imply that the entire cost is new expenditure as each state had already been allocating funding from their health budgets.
Depends what kind of private…finance and law are doing fine
Mining, gas and agriculture too.
Not if you're in lithium, nickel etc.
Iron ore isn't going crazy anymore and is somewhat plateauing.
Agreed that wheat is having a field day, pardon the pun.
@Drakesy: RTIO just announced a new Fe mine last week and have 4 more planned. Fe is still over USD100 (with a landed cost of around USD20)
Li is toast but is all over the world. That will come back and Australia remains the World's biggest producer.
Same for Ni due to Indonesia and Chinese money but even though now that is starting to eat itself.
Gold and gas going gangbusters. So is coal.
Rare earths will kick off. Watch this space.
All this can change, and change quickly, but plenty of life left in the old girl yet. For now anyway.
This is all the flow on of rampant inflation and technical recession.
Locally, hospitality and building industry are both being hit hard with high numbers of insolvency. Have to remember though that small businesses dont have to lodge with ASIC so it's harder to track.
Everything seems fine to the government employees that I have business or personal contact with. Hence, OP must be misguided.
All the stores in my nearest shopping center
Westfield Hornsby?
It's not Westfield a local shopping center in western
Then list them one by one please Ash?
local independent
Well sure there’s always a feel good aspect to supporting local, but how much markup are you prepared to cough up?
Unless they are like a franchised IGA or sunlit (Chinese mini marts) etc - buying power going to be limited , not to mention being hit with associated fees in upkeeping and fit outs, while still having all the normal type of business costs like wages.
Local stores are pricy but at least it existed as a local convenient store. Even that model seems to be dead now
In the good old days, there was a corner store, a butcher, newsagent, baker, hairdresser, coffee shop, dr, pharmacy,dry cleaner and hardware store.
Obsolete in most places now. The people who sell things take their wares to the places the most amount of people want to buy them.
Good old days for white males perhaps. Not everything was good back then.
@Typical16-bitEnjoyer: I don't think everything has ever been "good" all at once. If it was there would be no "bad" and the words "good" and "bad" would have been obsolete and lost all meaning except in fiction and history books.
20th century business models don't really work in 2025. Colesworth are around just from sheer monopoly. You can expect a lot of shops that follow more modern business models from overseas popping up soon, Asian chains and such.
Unmanned shops ?
that worked well for amazon
@Chandler: I'd like to understand how that complies with Contract Law.
Presumably it does to some extent at least as that link cites the program is active in the UK and we got our contract law from them so must be legit.
I wonder how it copes if the shopper changes their mind mid shop and decides they don't want that packet of biscuits anymore so I need to take them out of the trolley and return them to shelf.
At what point does Smazon consider the sale to be final after which there are no backsies or change of minds?
How does it deal with the toddler who throws a tantrum if they can't munch on something while mum shops?
Put it in trolley to scan/pay for it, but what happens when kiddo removes it, scoffs down a bit and then only has an empty package to return to the cart which will now be identified as being under weight.
Similarly, can't start munching before you put it in the cart or it will be identified as underweight.
That's assuming bright lights and noisy sirens aren't activated to alert your fellow shoppers that you're stealing that Lolly cos you didn't pay for it. Added bonus, wheels could lock preventing cart from being moved until item is correctly scanned and placed in trolley.
Besides, AI has a long way to go before it doesn't suck. I googled stuff yesterday and two completely wrong pieces of information featured at top of page where anyone unfamiliar with the topic would assume that information was accurate and factual.
Lucky I knew it was wrong but doubted myself to research further and clarify if the truth had recently changed (it hadn't).
Plenty of other times I've just accepted what it produced to be true and accurate and thought no more about it.
Someone asked a while ago why they needed to learn trig and calculus now that we have AI to do it for us…
I knew the answer but couldn't work out how to explain it in a meaningful way. Now I know.
Duopoly.
What outdated business models and 'modern business models' are you referring to?
The whole management and service structures, the expensive executives who relied on no competition in the shops to pay their salaries making the companies top heavy, sticking with the same old supply chains they were using 25+ years ago, all of it. The world has changed a lot since these popular chains started up many decades ago.
But if you get rid of middle and upper management who's going to create the synergies and keep everyone in the loop?
"Why aren't people buying from this store"
Next minute: So anyway I ordered 20 things on Amazon
At least 500 people payed $400 a head for Christmas Day lunch on the Gold Coast 2024.
That's just one restaurant.
What financial crisis?
I found a dollar while spending 5 seconds looking for the remote.
"Man earns $3,600 an hour while sitting on the couch, click here to find out how!"
Counterpoint: This is exactly the opportunity to tell Muppet Detector to put his family's life savings into running a restaurant given how business savvy he clearly is.
"Why eat at Hungry Jacks when we could give Dunning Krugers a go"
My family don't own restaurants.
You just made that up.
complete inability to process a hypothetical situation about the future, instead interpreting it as a statement of fact concerning the past
Welp, looks like we've solved the mystery about the quality level of your messages on here
We might as well make it official: how would you have felt if you didn't eat breakfast yesterday morning?
At least 500 people payed $400 a head for Christmas Day lunch on the Gold Coast 2024.
They were all CFMEU 'Stop Sign holders' on their 12 week Xmas leave entitlement…
Long time ago I saw Warwick Capper working that gig on a roundabout at Reedy Creek GC.
He was holding it up quite straight but the lady who holds the stop and go sign at the school crossing outside where some of my kids attended school did it much better and she was an unpaid volunteer - although she did get left over snacks from the tuck shop sometimes.
Your state? And what stores?
Don't believe your lying eyes, everything is fine, look => interest rate cut, please vote for us …
Wait till we have 10% off rare $900 lego it will be sold out in 15mins
Amazon had a few sets on decent sales today.
Picked up Bowser $100 off, D&D red dragon $80 off and LOTR black one $100 off.
About 10 others on sale too.
I'm impressed. Bowser arrived yesterday (Thursday 11am) so next day? delivery man even bought the box into the house and put it on the table.
Tipped him $5 -
It's always the same story. More people are buying online, rent and utilities are going up.