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Mark Stirton: Warehouse Group CEO hopeful the retailer can grow following recent net loss · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: The Warehouse Group has had another tough year, it's been reported,
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  Speaker 3: or rather it has reported a net loss of two
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  Speaker 3: point eight million dollars for the year. Mark Sturton is
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  Speaker 3: the chief executive of the Warehouse Group. Har Mark, Hi,
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  Speaker 3: you that tough day for.
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  Speaker 2: You, guys. Yeah, it's a tough day. You know. The
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  Speaker 2: economy is in a tough space as well, and we're
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  Speaker 2: feeling it as a retailer in these conditions, and consumers
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  Speaker 2: are doing a tough and yeah, we're proud that we
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  Speaker 2: were able to keep our top line in the positive
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  Speaker 2: in this environment, but unfortunately we had to reduce some
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  Speaker 2: of our priss and be competitive with a lot more
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  Speaker 2: promotions and clearance, which hurt our gross margins and they're
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  Speaker 2: ultimately our result at the bottom line, despite doing some
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  Speaker 2: really good work on cost control.
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  Speaker 3: How much of what is going on with the Warehouse
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  Speaker 3: is down to the economy and how much of it
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  Speaker 3: is down to the Warehouse and its own problems.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the economy is definitely weighing on
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  Speaker 2: the on the consumer sentiments. I mean, we're still getting
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  Speaker 2: over all the brands. We still get one point seven
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  Speaker 2: million people come through our doors every week, which is
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  Speaker 2: incredible number of visits for us as a brand. So
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  Speaker 2: we're definitely getting the foot traffic and our conversions up
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  Speaker 2: across all our brands, which is great. People are finding
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  Speaker 2: the things that we that they want. Unfortunately, the basket
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  Speaker 2: sizes are are not as big as what they need
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  Speaker 2: to be, and that's also a function of the mix
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  Speaker 2: of the products that people are buying. We're seeing a
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  Speaker 2: lot more people buying into smaller items, ticket items, which
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  Speaker 2: you know, you have to sell a lot more of
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  Speaker 2: those to make up the dollars that you need in
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  Speaker 2: order to get the top line moving, so and a
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  Speaker 2: lot of those items come at lower margins. So that's
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  Speaker 2: really the story is that we've and that's across all
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  Speaker 2: three of our brands. We've found that the mix of
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  Speaker 2: the products that are being sold is actually also affecting
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  Speaker 2: our gross margin.
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  Speaker 3: How long have you been in the job now?
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  Speaker 2: Ours the group's CFO, and I came over in April
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  Speaker 2: last year, so yeah, I've been in that role for
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  Speaker 2: fifteen months and then I took over on the first
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  Speaker 2: of August, the.
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  Speaker 3: CEO, Okay, do you see a way to turn this around?
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  Speaker 2: Definitely. I think we've got incredible brands. I've actually I
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  Speaker 2: can't believe that we've actually got that endowment of one
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  Speaker 2: point seven million feet. I mean, you think about New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand's a population of five point two million, and you've
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  Speaker 2: got that amount of visitors coming through your stores every week.
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  Speaker 2: It's owns our job to convert those feet into more
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  Speaker 2: meaningful baskets. And you know, our stores under our old
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  Speaker 2: strategy was more digitally focused, and we're going to get
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  Speaker 2: more focused on our stores. We've got some incredible house
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  Speaker 2: brands that have probably fallen by the wayside, and we're
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  Speaker 2: going to amplify those. And so we're really going to
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  Speaker 2: dig into our rural and regional roots, which were exceptionally
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  Speaker 2: strong as a business in those towns and cities. And
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  Speaker 2: then those are our urban areas where we've got a
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  Speaker 2: lot more competition. We probably haven't invested enough in the
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  Speaker 2: store experience and things like lighting and visual merchandising and
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  Speaker 2: the way we present our products. And we're getting some
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  Speaker 2: amazing traction and our beauty range, and you know, we've
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  Speaker 2: seen there's a lot of green shoots around the business,
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  Speaker 2: but we would be lovely if the economy also played ball,
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  Speaker 2: and we really hopeful that the ocr cuts that hopefully
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  Speaker 2: come up will help us on our journey.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, best of luck with that, Mark, Thanks so much,
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  Speaker 3: Mark Stirs and Chief executive of the Warehouse Group.
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