Chief Executive Officer’s Report / A better place to shop

Improving the customer experience

Over the last four years we have improved the look and feel of our stores, creating a store environment that is innovative and relaxed, fun and welcoming. So far, we have invested over $80 million in refurbishing eight stores, including Doncaster, Sydney City, Blacktown, Castle Hill, Northland, Geelong, Charlestown and Canberra. Going forward, we plan to refurbish three to five stores each year. The exciting rebuild of our flagship Myer Melbourne store is almost complete and customers will soon be able to enjoy a truly world-class department store.

In addition, over the past year we refreshed the visual merchandising in all of our stores, including better lighting, clearer branding and improved layout. We have released around 7,000 square metres of additional trading space through refurbishments, space planning and more efficient supply chain practices, and this has given us more room to introduce new brands, concessions and concepts to keep our stores interesting and keep customers coming back.

We are ensuring that we have the right offer in every store, using our MYER one customer data to tailor our merchandising offer by store to suit the trends and buying patterns of local customers.

In order to remain relevant, department stores today have to be theatrical, full of vigour and enthusiasm, colour and movement. For example, Myer’s refurbished Sydney CBD store includes a Weightwatchers Lifestyle Centre, a hair and make-up studio, a French patisserie, a bar and grill, and an optician.

We strive to offer something for every customer from Melbourne to Wagga, throughout the year from Christmas to Mother’s Day to Spring Racing Carnival. Customers have responded enthusiastically to our in-store program, which includes fashion and beauty workshops, racing styling sessions, kids’ holiday programs and, of course, our famous Santaland and Santa Express Train.

Continuing the tradition started by Sidney Myer himself, Myer is synonymous with Christmas, through our award-winning Christmas window displays and Christmas parades across Australia, which last year attracted tens of thousands of people to the streets of Melbourne alone.

Myer’s Jennifer Hawkins now takes part in special fashion parades in every major city store throughout the year, and we regularly hold pop-up fashion shows in stores across the country. Guest appearances by personalities such as cyclist Cadel Evans, cricketer Glenn McGrath, chef Jamie Oliver and Socceroos stars Tim Cahill and Harry Kewell keep customers coming back and energy levels high.

We know that to make Myer a better place to shop we have to get better at serving our customers, making sure that staff are friendly, helpful and available when customers need them. We have undergone a lot of change over recent years, which has been necessary to improve the business, but which at times has taken our team members’ focus away from the all-important priority of serving our customers.

Staff availability, achieved through aligning store team member rosters to customer shopping patterns, has been a key initiative, and we have re-rostered over 5,000 permanent team members. This means that we will have more team members available to serve customers in busy times, and in departments where higher levels of service are required, such as footwear. We are also investing in an extra one million labour hours this year to ensure that we make real progress on improving service (which includes extra hours for new stores at Top Ryde and Robina as well as additional staff at Myer Melbourne). The new point-of-sale system, which will be in all stores by Christmas this year, will shorten transaction times, enabling our people to spend more time helping customers.