Mosaic Brands to close more than 200 stores including Rockmans, Autograph and W.Lane

Fashion retailer Mosaic Brands is set to close down more than five of its major store brands.

Rockmans, Autograph, Crossroads, W.Lane and BeMe brands, including their stores and websites, will be shut down by Mosaic, CEO Erica Berchtold confirmed.

The company is Australia’s largest women’s fashion retailer group and reportedly employs 4000 staff and has approximately 700 stores around Australia. 

‘Mosaic will wind down five brands which have become marginal and non-core, allowing us to focus on five core growth brands,’ Ms Berchtold said.

‘Each of those core brands will have a clearly differentiated market proposition, target customer, price point and product range.’

The group will now focus on Millers, Noni B, Rivers and Katies brands.

‘Whilst the operational details of the rationalisation plan, including store closures, continue to be worked through, we will seek to minimise the impact on our team, including where possible reassigning impacted team members into roles within the five core brands.

‘Our Focus on Core is a growth-driven strategy to retain existing customers and attract new ones. Central to this strategy, Mosaic will continue to focus on servicing regional Australia.’

Professor Gary Mortimer, Queensland University of Technology Business School retail expert, said Mosaic Brands made the mistake of ‘essentially creating multiple brands to market to the exact same audience – middle aged, middle class woman’. 

‘These women all shop at the same stores so you are cannibalising your own market,’ Professor Mortimer told news.com.au. 

‘If you walk into a shopping centre, you will find at least two, if not three, of those brands all competing for the same customer and that just duplicates and triplicates the cost of doing business.’ 

Professor Mortimer likened the approach to the problem Kmart and Target faced several years ago when they were competing with two other Wesfarmers-owned discount stores.