Dymocks to close its Queen St outlet

This story, briefly reported last week on the blog is a major front page feature in the NZ Herald Business Section this morning along with the Whitcoulls restructuring story which appears on page three of the same section.

Wednesday Jun 03, 2009 By Maria Slade reporting in the New Zealand Herald

Dymocks at 246 Queen Street in Auckland, which is due to shut at the end of this month.

Photo / Greg Bowker

Bookseller Dymocks is to close its Queen St outlet, its third store closure within a month.
The company-owned and operated store at 246 Queen St will shut its doors for the last time on June 27.
This follows the liquidations last month of the Dymocks franchises on Wellington's Lambton Quay and at Smales Farm on the North Shore.
The latest closure will leave the chain with seven New Zealand stores, including a newly opened franchise in Ponsonby.
Dymocks chief executive Don Grover said the company had been looking for an alternative downtown Auckland site to 246 Queen St for some time, without success.
"It has not been an ideal situation there for a number of years now and we have sustained quite substantial losses keeping the business operating."
The shopping centre it was in had become virtually a service centre surrounded by fast food outlets, rather than the mall of cafes and other retail outlets it first traded in five years ago.
He said the company was "working tirelessly" to find another more suitable Queen St location and it was hopeful of reopening, but in the meantime it could not sustain the losses it was incurring on the current store.

Read the full piece by Maria Slade here and the Whitcoulls piece here.