Max Brenner

Are Australians skipping luxury purchases due to high mortgage costs?
eg is Max Brenner the first of many??

- Livemarketchat

 

I think people are just less interested in food that’s really bad for you.

 

To add
Coffee style cake chain s is hard in Australia.

We have a great Cafe culture and unlike US like our individual/unique eateries.

This is my opinion.

Similar to Starbucks fail imo.

 

Retail especially aspirational retail has been on the slide for years. Oliver Brown coffee has been in administration for a while Now.

 

The link between house prices and falling car sales

 

I am amazed they were still in business, monstrously overpriced totally bland/tasteless low quality chocolate&coffee with poor/slow service.No need to read to much into this failure

 

The only good thing was their heart-shaped ceramic cups that seemed to fit perfectly in your hands.

 

They were rubbish. The cups I mean. Fits perfectly in your hands but makes you feel like a toddler drinking out of sippy cup.

Their chocolate tasted like sawdust mixed with sugar. Chocolates tasted like cheap knockoff of woollies homebrand.

 

I bought a chocolate drink from them in one of those heart shaped mugs not so long after they opened but it was so sickly strong and sweet. Never went back.

 

I think the problem is people don't like chain stores or boilerplate experiences anymore. I'm not sure if it's a hipster thing, or a fashion thing, but people seem to like unique, "authentic" experiences much more than they did in the past. Craft beers are huge, individual restaurants/cafes (especially unique cuisines), farmers markets, food trucks vs. the old fast food places... that pre-packaged, standard experience is out, especially with younger people. Max Brenner also has a lot of competition from places like Oliver Browns, and didn't they also go broke recently? And still my bet is a store just like these without the franchise label would be "that awesome hip chocolate place".

 

There's more to this. People need to feel fundamentally good about a luxury purchase.

Chains are for cheap, convenient stuff...Kmart, Macca's etc. If you're going to buy a luxury it's best to know the sellers name, help the local community etc....you're buying goodwill.

That and their chocolates are crap.

 

Update from Oct. New car sales are falling sharply.

Trouble in the car yards as vehicle sales plummet

 

Maybe my taste buds are dead but I Thoguht their hot chocolates were much better than standard Cafe hot chocolates.

But at almost double the price, even though I could afford it.. I just couldn't justify ever going there on my own accord.

With the high rents, low spend per head, I'm surprised they lasted period

 

I didn't know they existed.

 

In Vic a Max Brenner hot chocolate is $6.70 - so not that expensive if they are using real chocolate.

Their coffees are a fairly normal price. From the article, it seems that they have a number of shops that are profitable.

 

Probably they are dead, and what is "standard Cafe hot chocolates"?

Article seems to indicate the profitable shops are either in the areas frequented by tourists, or where there is no other entertainment available whatsoever.

 

Max and car sales correlation is weak.

Really unrelated.

 

Well, cafes serve hot chocolates, don't they??
And they're not speciality chocolateirers .. So you'd expect the hot choc at Max Brennars to be better

 

Not really. Franchise is a business model. It’s not like they sent every “chocolatier” to the Swiss alps for five years in depth training. So they provided “standard” experience.

At least cafes differ as much as their owners and their mixing and cooking style differs. There is no such thing as “standard” cafe chocolate. Unless that cafe is a franchise chain.

 

So on the contrary, why do franchise chains like Starbucks succeed in the States? I guess we could say they have no culture...