{"id":739692,"date":"2026-06-16T07:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T07:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739692\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T07:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T07:42:08","slug":"retailer-lincraft-to-close-remainder-of-shopfronts-and-move-entirely-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739692\/","title":{"rendered":"Retailer Lincraft to close remainder of shopfronts and move entirely online"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retailer Lincraft will close the remainder of its shopfronts after more than 80 years of providing fabric, materials and homewares to Aussie crafters.<\/p>\n

The company is the latest to shift its business model entirely online as customer behaviours change.<\/p>\n

About 300 staff will be affected by the move, with guarantees from Lincraft that all entitlements will be paid.<\/p>\n

It comes after a prolonged period of challenging retail conditions, the company said in a statement announcing the move today.<\/p>\n

Barbeques Galore to shut<\/a><\/p>\n

It will shut its 62 company-owned stores in the coming weeks and working through “transitional arrangements” with 27 stores owned by franchises, with hundreds of staff facing redundancy.<\/p>\n

Changing consumer behaviour, increased operating costs, and growing pressure from low-cost overseas competitors were listed as factors in the decision.<\/p>\n

Lincraft has 30 stores still in operation, mostly across Australia’s eastern states and territories, with plans to close the majority of the stores within six months.<\/p>\n

The company began as a market stall in Melbourne in 1938, before being taken over by current owners John Maguire and Brian Swersky as Lincraft Australia in 2005.<\/p>\n

Mr Maguire said the decision to close the stores was a difficult one.<\/p>\n

“Lincraft has been part of Australian and New Zealand communities for generations,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This has been an extremely difficult decision, particularly because of the impact on our team members, many of whom have given years of loyal service to the business.<\/p>\n

“Our priority is to support our team members through this transition and to communicate with them as clearly and respectfully as possible.”<\/p>\n

It is far from the only iconic Australian retailer to be affected by changing consumer appetites.<\/p>\n

Last week, Barbeques Galore announced it was shuttering more than 60 physical shopfronts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That company’s 62 stores are due to begin closing from today, with transitional arrangements underway for a remaining 27 franchise-owned stores.<\/p>\n

The closures are expected to make 500 staff redundant.<\/p>\n

In October 2024, Mosaic Brands Group \u2014 the company behind Millers, Noni B, Katies, Rivers and others \u2014 announced all its brands and stores would close by April 2025.<\/p>\n

The group had 763 stores and employed about 3,000 people in Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retailer Lincraft will close the remainder of its shopfronts after more than 80 years of providing fabric, materials…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,356973,188449,356968,356969,356970,356972,356971,16763],"class_list":["post-739692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-craft-store","tag-homewares","tag-lincraft","tag-lincraft-closing-stores","tag-lincraft-going-fully-online","tag-lincraft-staff-lose-jobs","tag-lincraft-stores-to-close","tag-redundancies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}