How Jeans West Failed To Stay Relevant

Hi, I'm Britney Saunders, and welcome to Big Business, the place where business is far from boring. And today I'm recording on gaddigul Land. Now I somehow manage to build an empire from the garage underneath my house, and I'm here to share it all with you, from the winds,

For a really long time. That's what you call brands that have been around for a really long time.

I'm old and.

We're going to be discussing it.

And also I'm going to share some of my thoughts and some of my fears around potentially finding myself in this same position one day, because it's a harsh it's a harsh reality. Businesses are gonna end one day, and that's just a scary reality that we deal with. And before I jump into today's episode, I just want to do a little reminder.

And you're going to get sick of me. You're going to be sick of me.

But just in case you didn't hear like my last bonus episode or see anything that I've posted on Instagram in the last week or so, I have a book.

I have written a book.

I'm an author and my book is available for pre order right now. Xander's going to leave a link in the show notes. It's on book Topia. If you love everything I do here on the pod, you will love my book. So I just thought I would give my book one more little shout out. But let's just jump straight into today's episode. Well, Xander, did you know that approximately sixty percent of Australian businesses fail within their first three years, with many failing in the first year.

I actually did know that because I did business studies in high school and I.

Did business studies too.

I hated it.

I loved it.

Did you have to like a make up like a pretend business and have like a business plan?

Yes?

Yeah? Yeah?

What was mine?

I think I I think at the time, I still wanted to be a dance teacher, Okay, and so I think I like it was a dance school that was my.

I don't remember what mine was, but it makes me wish that I still had like all my old school I know stuff Cuz imagine.

Lost on the old house computer somewhere.

Imagine if I'd done a clothing label. I feel like I could have, like now that I think about it. Anyway, For those of you that didn't know that fact, sixty percent of all Australian businesses fail within their first three years.

That is a very alarming statistic.

In financial year twenty twenty three to twenty twenty four, there were four hundred thirty six thousand business entries and three hundred and sixty two thousand exits.

That's like almost all of them.

Yes.

Yeah, So Jean's West, which we all know it has been around for a really long time, they have announced that they are going into administration and closing all of their physical retail stores. And the shutting down of their physical retail chain will impact six hundred employees across ninety stores. It's saying here that the business will still operate online.

I have a lot of questions around this, and I brought a few of them up too before we even started. But from someone I'm not in business, so and you've mentioned that they would have had leases for the ninety stores still ongoing from a couple of years ago. But like in my head, you know, four or five years ago, they knew they were in trouble, they knew their own over time.

They went into administration back in twenty twenty, I believe, and then I think a parent company came in.

Yeah, it took over, took over, and then it's happened again.

Why with ninety stores across Australia and you're you're in what it seems like some crippling financial struggles, why would you not close down a large majority of those stores to save costs and then move a lot of your business online.

You think that that's what they would do.

Yeah.

Again, I'm not in any kind of position to be giving advice, totally.

Done, but that's where my mind goes.

Me too, Like, the only thing I can think of is how difficult it would be to get out of so many leases, And in my experience, all of our commercial retail leases that we sign are five years long. But I wonder because Jean's West is so big, and they've been around for so long, and they've had stores for so long, I wonder if they're in ten or fifteen or twenty year leases.

Because there's a Genes West store in almost every major shopping so you go to.

Yeah, I also think I don't know a single person that's ever shopped.

At Geans don't. I don't know anyone that's ever shopped at Jeans West.

And there's so much that I could say here, because I'm going to get into it, like what I would do if I was Jean's West, But my only thought is, like with ninety stores, like I can only imagine how expensive it would be for them to shut them because when you're breaking that lease, you've got to pay it out.

Yeah, does that depend on the contract you're in.

Yeah.

And again I can't speak for them because who knows what their leases say, who knows how long their leases are, But I could only imagine they're probably longer and bigger than my little leases.

That I've got.

Yeah, but it's so expensive to break a lease, like a regular lease, let alone a retail one, like I can't even begin to imagine, And I'm gonna guess like maybe that's why they haven't made the decision to shut them, But I mean they've made the decision now.

From your perspective, obviously, Fates like nowhere near as big as Jean's West had been yet yet.

Yeah, Okay, if I could handle that.

You know, right now, in the scale that Fate is at, you would be comfortable with the five year lease that's kind of like the standard.

Yeah, but even then that's a really scary thing to sign totally.

But with their scale, Jean's West scale, do you think it would be a common thing to sign a lease that was a lot longer? Do you think that they were probably felt safe to do that.

Actually, they could have some really long leases in place. And again I don't know this for sure, but this is the scary thing. And I know we've spoken about this on the podcast before, but signing more and more leases, you're extending the hopeful length of your business journey. So I have all of my leases now for my five stores, and the one that will be coming up first would be our Westfield Miranda store. Yeah, because besides own Newcastle

Then if you know what I mean.

And again, when it comes to having leases, you then have to decide at the end, am I going to commit to another five years or do I walk away from the store. So like, for example, our Westfield Miranda store in about two years time, will have to start thinking like are we going to keep this going? Are we going to commit to another five years in Miranda? Because a lot can happen in five years, a lot can happen in five days in business, and one of the craziest things about business.

When it boils down to it.

I'm not guaranteed tomorrow in my business journey. Shit could hit the fan overnight tonight and my business could collapse. We could make one bad financial decision and boom fate could be gone tomorrow. But then you've got these long leases that you're committed to, and that's just one of the most difficult things to deal with and sign yourself up to. But that's the risk that we take when we open retail stores, is we are confident enough that we can keep that thing going for five years. Yeah.

From an outsider's perspective, looking at Jeans West and how they've operated over the years, where do you think they were sitting in terms of how people viewed them as a business. Now do you think that they have kind of they failed to kind of keep up. Yes.

The reason why Jean's West.

I believe the reason why Jeans West is shutting all their stores is because.

They haven't done anything.

They haven't done a single thing to keep up with the way that the world and social media.

Has changed, just aggressed instead.

They're a dinosaur brand that's been around forever. They've done things the same all the time, and.

It has worked in the past.

It has worked, but it's changed so much now and it's almost disappointing because at some point there they would have.

Had the money to change.

And God, like I wish if I wasn't running Fate, I could go in and go all right, because at the end of the day, they just need to level up their marketing.

They need to switch it up. What is one cool.

Activational campaign that Jeans West has ever done?

I can't think of one, and.

It's so frustrating because Jeans West could be cool. I was even thinking even the name Jeans West, like, I feel like that's such a cool name. When we hear Jeans West, we do think of like old. But God, if they just did like a bit of a rebrand, got a good marketing gun in even just a really fire social media person.

They could flip that thing on its head.

I think a back fifteen years ago in my when I was a teenager and I would go into Jeans West and look for a pair of jeans or.

Whatever, a piece of clothing.

I would not now, I would never walk into that store thinking I'd find something for me.

That's the other thing as well.

They need to realize that retail isn't what it used to be. It's not just hanging clothes and folding them on a table and having foot traffic coming in and buy. You've got to create an experience in your stores.

And I think that's.

Another part of why they're shutting down all their stores, because their stores are bland.

It's styles haven't changed.

It's not an experience. But don't get me wrong, people love jeans like jeans is one of our number one selling categories at FATE. People love jeans. They could have really like made their whole brand about having the best gens ever. I would love if I didn't, if it wasn't so busy, I would love to go in and try and help Jeans West hire me as your brand and marketing coordinator. I would love to flip that thing on its head. And it's just disappointing, you know, And

And that's what I honestly think.

A hypothetical for you.

Yeah, say, for example, God Forbid Fate found itself in some financial difficulties yep, which meant you needed to scale back to save the business?

Yep.

How would you go about that? What would your first steps be? And I realized this is dependable on how bad it is. Yeah, but give us an example of the steps you would take to ensure the business survived.

Firstly, I would obviously speak with our accountant, and we do this often and we always look at and know our numbers. But I'd be chatting with our accountant straight away. I'd be finding out where we're going wrong. I'd be finding out what's making us lose money?

Is it the stores?

Is it you know, head office, like, I'd find out where we're losing money and then, sadly, what you would have to do is look at stripping back. So if it was stores, for example, and we weren't making enough money in the stores and the business was going backwards, you'd have to look at shutting some of them down. And we see stores shut down all the time. It's hard to own a store. It is so expensive. Once I knew that, and once I knew what I needed to do, once I knew where I was losing.

Money, I would turn it into a marketing campaign.

I have always been so proud of being open and honest with our Fate community, with my community here on big business. I would be completely honest and share my journey. I would take it to social media and I would say, this is happening in my business, and this is literally if.

This happens like, this is exactly what I'd fucking do.

If Fate ever is in that kind of position, I would take it to our community.

I would tell them.

What we're going through, and I would talk to them about what we're going to do to try and keep ourselves afloat. And you see, it's so sad, but you know how you see so many businesses like let's say a local cafe for example, they're in financial hardship and they go to their Facebook page and you've seen like posts of business owners say it's with heavy hearts that we're closing next weekend, and then you see this uproar of community saying, no, you make the best pies.

Happened for a few places here in Sydney and all of a sudden, the community.

Like when I've seen it a million times.

I remember it happened with yogat Land, but did you have yogat Land was at just Newcastle thing, so this was before Yochi and everything, but there was we had this yogurt Land.

I think there was two of them. Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah, because that would have been so hard for them.

They can't do one line.

No, But I remember, you know they're announcing on their Facebook, you know, yoga Land shutting down on in four weeks or whatever, and then there was just this uproar of support from the people that love yogat Land. So I would do the same, but I would do it not a week before we're shutting half the company down.

I'd try and let my community know as soon as I.

Could, because like the power of community is like nothing else, and I'd at least just give it a shot and be honest with everyone and say, this is what we're experiencing, this is what we're going to do in hopes to kind of keep this brand going and a float. I'd ask my community for feedback, where are we going wrong? What can we improve on, and I'd hear it from them.

I think people wouldn't do that because they probably feel a shamed that our business is failing.

One hundred percent.

But like I said at the start of this episode, like sixty percent of businesses fail in the first three years, with most of them failing in the first I think we've got to lose this sense of like this fear of people thinking that we're a failure, because I think even if you start a business and it lasts for three years, let's say, and then you have to shut it down because it's just too hard to keep it going, I think that's something worth being so proud of instead of feeling like you've failed at.

Because you.

Had an idea and you brought it to life and you gave it a go. But we're just so worried about what people would say and it's not to say if Fate ever finds us in that scenario at some stage in.

My life, of course I'll feel like a failure.

But if I'm ever going to go through a really difficult financial stage with fate, I would want my community to know what we're going through, and I would want them to help us to maybe try and pick ourselves up again. And not by I mean not just shopping with us, but giving us feedback, letting us know what we can improve on or fix or level up to make shopping with us more enjoyable.

Something you just said resonated with me. You said community. Then do you think Jeans West has failed to establish their own community?

Yes, Jean's West doesn't have a community. I don't know one person. And again it might be the different demographic, but I don't know one person that has ever gone and shopped at Jean's West. And I feel as if though people.

Our age like thirties, forties.

Even people in their twenties, like we all love a good pair of geens, I feel like they've failed to capture that market. But Jean's West could be so cool. I think Jean's West is such a cool brand name like West yeah, like it's so it's so cool. I just feel like they've missed the mark and they've just been too stuck in their traditional ways, traditional retail.

They've got to get with the times now.

On all of this, we've seen a lot of other businesses and brands shut down recently, and like over the last year, Ali Fashion has collapsed and I've got here off Google, owing as much as fifty eight million dollars one hundred and fifty eight stores across Australia and online they employed sixteen hundred Oh Ali Yeah, Ali Oh.

I'm not that I've ever shopped there, but I know yeah.

And again that's been around for ages.

Like I used to go there when I was fourteen and fifteen to get a ten dollar dress to wear to the school disco.

I just it just is so I'm not in business, but it's so crazy to me that these huge companies are finding themselves in these positions where we're actually shutting the whole thing down.

Well, I think the other thing as well is this is an example of a brand or a business growing too big and to keep it it's out of control. And this is what I'm so mindful of is you can grow a business, and it can be booming stores bing bang bong stores opening up everywhere, but then it can become just out of control that the whole thing can just collapse and it's so big beyond you. You've lost the control that you don't you can't save it because there's too many working parts to it.

And my community is always saying open.

More stores, grow too fast.

Yeah, but I'm so careful with what I do, and people even say slow down. I'm like, come on, I'm

But that initial demand might diminish and then you're stuck here with expenses exactly right.

And that's what we've seen with Ali Jean's West and all these other brands that are going bust. We also had the same with Millers and nony Be again. They've been around for a really, really long time. Like I remember Grannie shopping there when I was little.

Did Rivers shut as well?

We've got rivers bar dough. If you remember Bardo, I remember the girl grew you best better?

What's what's the other? One? Is a need's a bad? You know? Okay?

I think I only knew the one song I'll tell you who? I love Sophie, Mum.

I love son love Sophie.

Can we get her on here? Have you met her?

No?

I would die? And you know what she always every time she does. She did it on the bloody uber eats ads. She put down her pop album she released and it infuriates me because her only in one solo album is fucking phenomenal.

I need to listen to her.

She always puts it down. I'm like, no, shut the fuck up. It is amazing.

Sorry, this is a business podcast on a music podcast.

There was also Sanity music stores. How devastating for them, but like understandable, but imagine.

The guy that created Sanity and then Spotify comes out.

Because at the time you're thinking, oh, well, no one's ever going to stop buying music, HM and lo and behold, so.

In twenty twenty three, Sanity announced that they were closing all of their remaining fifty physical stores.

Do you know what I would have done it by, was them? What I would have completely shifted to a vinyl business.

Oh yeah, because vinyls are cool.

Yeah.

The thing is, it's all in hindsight, because.

And also, like these brands have been around forever, like Sanity, Jeans West, I mean, they've probably had lots and lots of owners. Like it's not just owned by one person that's running the whole thing. But when you've been around for that long, you're probably just fucking done with it. And if you've gone through that much hardship that you just.

Don't you're already in trouble.

Yeah, you don't have it in you to go all right, let's rebrand and like change it all up.

There's so many things to consider.

I think one of the scariest things about reading this and my friend Tara, who owns Proud Poppy, who we've had on the pod already if you want to listen to that episode from a little while ago. She shared something on her story the other day saying, oh, Jeans West is shutting down and I'm just opening my next door next week.

Like it's fucking scary.

And it's one thing to be super confident and think, oh, that's never going to happen to me, But the reality of it is, one day my business is going to shut down. Because again, most businesses don't even make it through the first three years. What businesses, especially solo owned businesses, make it for a lifetime.

It's actually hard to think of a lot of businesses who expand more than one store. Yeah, think of all the cafes you go to, a lot of them, there's.

Not multiple Yeah, solo owned businesses. I feel like it's rare to see. And by that I mean like me, for example, I just own Fate. There's no investors, there's no board of directors. If you were to or if I were to have someone come in and take most of Fate off me and have a board of directors and get money injected into it, maybe Fate would last longer than just me on my own doing it because I'm just obviously figuring out how to.

Keep it afloat all on my own with AJ.

But it's a harsh and scary reality and I haven't thought about it a lot, but I have more recently with all these stores closing down.

One day, fate is going to end, and it's going to end in my lifetime, but it might not. But what are the fucking odds that's no?

You are right, yeah, yeah, that it is.

Yeah, but I will obviously always be optimistic and hope that I can make fate last to the end of my life. But that is that would be a success story that no one's ever fucking heard of, Like a young girl just start in this clothing brand and she makes it last her whole life. And it's just one of those things like that you stop and think of and go holy shit, like Fate's going to end one day.

For its downfall. Let someone else deal with the downfall.

That's why people sell businesses because they walk away at the peak, they get all their money, and who cares about the rest? Who cares what happens after that? And I don't know if I'm ever going to do that, or if I'm just going to see it out right until the end.

For something that you've built from the ground up, Yeah, it would be hard to envision would I actually sell it or would I actually be the one too?

And that would be devastating. I know we had Christian Hull on the pod and he talked to us about closing down his business.

But I would love.

To get someone on here who has had a business for a long time, maybe someone who has had retail as well, and talk to them about what that was like, because it would be a bittersweet to watch.

Your business end, but it would also be devastating.

Yeah.

So I get why people sell their businesses and walk away, because then you can just be like.

Yay, and then you just forget about it.

And it's just weird to think, like, one day I'm going to have to make one of those two decisions, selling fate to someone else or just watching it fail. And that's fucked up to think, but that's the truth. But then I think, I think what it all boils back to at the end of the day is we need to be starting businesses and running businesses to enjoy every moment of the journey, not for the exit, and a lot of other people will tell you otherwise.

No, it's all.

About the exit strategy and getting out when it's at its peak and making the most amount of money.

But I don't know about that.

For me. I think I would want to ride the wave right until the very end.

And when is that going to be? Who knows.

That's the beauty of business and the game is. I am not guaranteed tomorrow with Fate. It could all crumble overnight just with one bad mistake. It could be next year, It could be in three years when all of our stores leases are coming to an end. It could be in twenty years. I have no idea what the future holds for Fate. I can make projections based off how we're going at the moment, but also the world changes, shit happens. So it's just a really eye opening thing to think about.

And I won't lie.

It is scary seeing all of these retailers that have been around for a long time shutting down, And if anything, I think it's a reminder to me and other business owners out there, especially if you are in retail, how can we make our experience different and how can we keep ourselves afloat. You actually shared something with me the other day that I thought I would end on about AI. Me.

Yeah, okay, you.

Shared it with me on TikTok, and it had me thinking with how much AI is taking over and how everything is becoming artificial, from images to videos, email marketing that we get from brands. It's all becoming so AI. And you know, it's getting to the point where now there's so much fake stuff out there that you don't

To lose their trust and not going to believe it. Then you're not going to believe it.

You're not going to want to shop with every brand that's emailing you because everything just sings fake and people.

I already feel that way a lot of the time. If I'm being sold to online, I'm like, I actually want to speak to a person because I don't quite trust what I'm reading or what I'm seeing.

So maybe hopefully it could be a good thing. With the rise of AI and everything being fake online, maybe people will be seeking that in person connection more and taking it back to the roots of retail. And so maybe that's when brands like myself and other retail business owners can step up and be the one there to offer that in person service and we can pivot and make it amazing so that people can escape the crazy online AI world and come in store and just have a good old fashion shop.

So that's that for you.

As always, thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of Big Business. Please rate me five stars if you haven't already. And I thought I would also do a reminder that I have written a book. If you follow me on Instagram you will see I'm not shutting up about it at the moment, but I just thought I would do a reminder again.

Xander will leave a link to book.

Topia in the show notes, or you can literally just jump on the book Tope your website and pretty sure there's a banner of me there. You can type in my name. Please pre order my book. If you love my podcast, you will love reading my book. Or if you know someone that's at the start of their business journey or maybe they're even just thinking of starting a business or pursuing something on their own.

I feel like my book would be a great gift to give.

To someone who's looking for some inspiration. As always, I'm going to wrap up today's episode with a tip of the week, And you know what, My tip of the week is to be completely different to the theme of today's episode. And it's actually a tip that the interview Boss Girls said when they were here on my pod, and I don't remember exactly how it goes or if it is a quote that I could actually directly quote from someone. Maybe we can try and search it up online.

Behaviors that you're maybe participating in.

There's always going to be someone that's talking about you and your career when you're not in the room. So be mindful of that and do everything in your power to make sure if you love, if you love your job and you want to grow, make sure that someone in that room is going to be on your team and be the one rooting for you saying yes, we should promote this person, yes we should give this person a pay rise, because it's just something I guess employees.

Wouldn't think of. And when the interview boss girls said that to me, I was like, oh, yeah, that's a fucking good one. That's so true. So be mindful all your.

Employees out there, and always remember that. Anyway, I better head off, but thanks for listening, and remember to make sure you chase after your dreams as if they owe you money,