First it was Dick Smith Electronics, then the Woolworths-owned Masters home improvement chain that went under. Now, thousands more workers will be jobless at Christmas after a fresh slew of corporate collapses rounded out 2016.
Australia's Payless Shoes this week announced plans to close its doors by the end of February, hot on the heels of Howards Storage World's demise, and that of children's fashion label Pumpkin Patch.
While Treasurer Scott Morrison seized on the latest bad news to bolster the Coalition's tax reform agenda, market watchers say there is far more that needs to be done.
Retail analyst Barry Urquhart of Marketing Focus said neither corporate leaders nor government had acknowledged what he called "an attitudinal recession" that was restraining businesses.
While the nation was yet to tip into an official recession - despite having just marked its worst quarterly performance since the global financial crisis - Australians remained apprehensive about their futures, he said.
And any business that failed to respond to this by recapturing the public imagination with a compelling, value-driven offering would simply fall by the wayside.
PUMPKIN PATCH
Once upon a time, Pumpkin Patch was a runaway success story.
At its peak in 2007, the kids' fashion label founded by New Zealander Sally Synnott was valued at $830 million, with hundreds of stores across the globe.
Nine years later the clothing empire is worthless, with its receivers unable to find a white knight willing to take on the basket case of a company after it was placed into administration, owing $76 million.
VALLEY GIRL, TEMT
Earlier this year receivers were called in to take charge of struggling retailer Valleygirl. Receivers appointed to the Valleygirl and TEMT fashion stores in New Zealand closed all but one store, operating on Auckland's Queen Street.
The chain previously had 31 stores across the country, with around 160 workers.
It went into voluntary administration on July 22, with receivers McGrathNicol appointed on July 26.
In a statement, receiver Conor McElhinney said, "the company is unable to continue to trade due to its financial position and stock levels."
Valley Girl and Temt stores also closed down this year. Photo / Sarah Ivey
The failure is blamed on poor trading by its related Australian retailers, Paper Scissors, and Chicabooti, with which Valleygirl and TEMT shared suppliers.
When the Australian businesses failed, Valleygirl and TEMT could no longer secure stock to sell.
Australia's Payless Shoes opened its first store in Sydney in 1980, and is one of the country's biggest independent shoe retailers.
But the company has been struggling for years, and was only saved from extinction in 2013 when its United States namesake Payless ShoeSource bought it out.
Since then it has continued bleeding cash, losing $10.2 million in 2014 and $10.8 million in 2015.
The private equity firms behind the acquisition finally pulled the plug last week, placing the discount chain into voluntary administration.
And the reason why? According to Urquhart, it's not rocket science.
In a mission statement on its website, Payless says it aims to be "the go-to shoe store that budget-conscious women can count on for value, quality and style, helping everyone look good every step of the way by offering a trend-right and comprehensive range of everyday and special-occasion shoes for every member of the family".
But anyone who's ever wandered into a Payless Shoes store knows that their designs are far from on trend, Urquhart said.
Pumpkin Patch is the latest retailer to have closed its doors. Photo / Bevan Conley
"The whole concept of 'pay less' and their race to the bottom with discounting highlights the fact that consumers do not give you loyalty when the only thing that differentiates you is price," he said.
"When you're talking about fashion and shoes and clothing, you're talking about personal branding and making a statement."
And few contemporary Australians would want to be known as the person who scored a bargain at Payless Shoes, he said.
"If you cut to the chase everything is about branding. We've got a deficiency of brands that represent value, consistency and continuity."
THE MAGIC FORMULA
Too expensive, too cheap; it's easy for retailers to get it wrong in today's market.
The key lay not just in price, but the combination of value, point of difference and innovation, Urquhart said, with brands like Apple and Aldi were winning because they understood this magic formula.
"It is not necessarily about being the cheapest; Apple is not the cheapest, but people stand in line to get their products because they know it's new, it's upgraded all the time, it's got the simplicity of design. They dont need to be cheaper than Android, they're just there as a desirable situation."
And Aldi was shaking up the grocery sector with its discount offering based on a slimmed-down product range and smaller profit margins, gobbling up 12.5 per cent of the $92 billion industry in the past 15 years.
Australians businesses should take their cue from these global innovators, Mr Urquhart advised.
"Consumers are saying, 'tell me what's, new, innovative creative and exciting', and they can't see it on the business landscape," he said. "So people are saying 'well, we'll just reign in and have a little more of the same.
"There has been a lack of imagination, a decided lack or absence of new product. That is one of the reasons why this Christmas is going to be a very flat, uninteresting situation. It is relatively dull, boring, repetitive - and that is not the sort of thing that will capture the imagination or stimulate the emotion."
