A NUMBER of jobs are likely to go at Traralgon’s Dahlsens branch over the next month, as the store drops its lifestyle range due to poor sales performance.
According to a Dahlsens marketing spokesperson, the Traralgon employees were informed of the move on Friday morning; however, it remains unclear how many positions will be cut in the downscale.
Dahlsens has employed about 30 full time equivalent staff since the store relocated to its current Princes Highway site five years ago, however the business has been unable to win market share for its lifestyle products from other outlets, particularly the Bunnings Morwell store.
The spokesperson said its Traralgon store had only been able to win 10 per cent of market share, and branches in Albury and Ballarat were also downsizing due to similar poor performance.
“At the end of this, Dahlsens Traralgon will become a dedicated trade centre, and will be very much dedicated to trades and building supplies when the store reopens after Christmas on 7 January,” the spokesperson said.
He said the Dahlsens group had been monitoring poor performance at the site for some time; however, a decision to scale down the business had only been made last week.
“We entered a very competitive landscape against Bunnings with the new store, and a Masters store will probably come onto the local market at some point… the housing market has also been very slow so this hasn’t helped either,” he said.
The spokesperson said the move would allow the business to fully focus on the trade side of the business, which he said was still “competitive and healthy”.
While the spokesperson confirmed workers would be affected by the move, he could not comment on the number of positions in question.
