Australian online retail business Catch Group has followed up its June announcement that it will launch a digital retail marketplace with news it will also head into the bricks-and-mortar space by Christmas.
Group chief executive Nati Harpaz said the business was on the lookout for retail space in Melbourne, and has approval to sell mixed merchandise across a range of categories.
“The store will carry around 3,000 to 4,000 of our more popular products, across categories, including the relaunched Pumpkin Patch brand,” he said in a statement.
The business, which is embarking on a strategic process of diversifying its offering and has previously told SmartCompany it will look at more “premium brands”, will also start new delivery and click-and-collect options for shoppers.
“In our view, there is no online or offline, it’s just one retail,” Harpaz said of the multi-channel move.
Aussies have $70 million of unused gift cards in their wallets
Many small businesses have gift cards on offer, but according to research by finder.com.au, millions of Australians aren’t heading in store to cash in store credit.
A survey of 2,005 Australian consumers found 14% had let funds on a gift card expire over the past two years: a figure that can be extrapolated to 2.6 million Australians pocketing the cards but never coming back in store to spend them. the researchers say.
Finder’s Bessie Hassan says the gift card format is not that convenient for Aussie consumers in this day and age.
“When you’re given a gift card, a lot of the time you’ll forget to put it in your wallet. In fact, you’ll probably find they end up sitting in the card or envelope you received it,” she said.
Businesses still wanting to target shoppers with gift cards despite this might be best off pitching their products at younger consumers. While they still tend to let store credit lapse, Gen Y shoppers waste the least gift card dollars of any generation surveyed.
Fair Work Ombudsman extends anonymous report function to 16 languages
The workplace ombudsman is continuing its focus on fighting exploitation among communities of migrant workers, announcing this week it will roll out its “anonymous report” tool in a range of languages other than English, including an Arabic, Chinese and Spanish function.
“Since the launch of the Anonymous Report function, the Fair Work Ombudsman has received more than 10,000 tipoffs with 15 per cent of these come from visa holders,” Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James said in a statement.
“Now migrant workers can tell us their concerns, in their own language, without being identified.”
James says intelligence from within migrant communities about potential breaches of workplace law is a major priority for her office, and believes the tools will make it much easier workers from non-English speaking backgrounds to speak up while being assured of anonymity.
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