High-end designer retailer with turnover of $12.4 million collapses

An online retailer that sells designer brands such as Ralph Lauren, Yves Saint Laurent and Calvin Klein at discounts of up at 80% has collapsed.

Despite Australian shoppers embracing the international retailers choosing to enter the Australian market, Brent Kijurina and Richard Albarran of Hall Chadwick were appointed administrators of Mynetsale.com.au on July 1.

The administrators are seeking expressions of interest in the business, which according to an advertisement on the Hall Chadwick website turns over approximately $12.4 million a year.

All of the business’ assets are for sale, including a database of more than 600,000 customers.

Mynetsale.com.au sells clothing, footwear, accessories, beauty products and homewares from a range of international and Australian designers, with customers signing up for a free membership that gives them access to 72-hour sales, during which time the items are discounted by between 60-80%.

Kijurina told SmartCompany Mynetsale has continued to trade throughout the administration process, as many customers had ordered products from the site but had not yet received them at the time of the company entering administration.

Kijurina is confident a buyer will be found for the business, with Hall Chadwick sending out 90 deeds of confidentiality to interested parties and around 30 memorandums of understanding regarding the sale.

“There’s been quite a lot of offers received,” he says.

Kijurina says the administration was the result of “a lack of funding from the French holding company” which backs Mynetsale, which was at the stage where it needed more capital.

“The business is backed by a French company, which has a number of investors who ultimately decided they probably didn’t want to invest any more in the Australian subsidiary,” says Kijurina.

SmartCompany contacted Mynetsale but has not yet received a response.

Despite the collapse of Mynetsale, Australians are still spending up big when it comes to online retail.

Australian online retail spending increased by 6.4% for the year ending April 2014, amounting to $15.25 billion in sales and 6.6% of traditional retail spending, according to the National Australia Bank Online Retail Sales Index published in June.

Department and variety stores contributed 33.2% to growth, followed by online groceries and liquor sales at 22% and online books, movies and music also at 22%.