Mountain Warehouse to roll out four new stores in Australia in 2024

Leading British outdoor and lifestyle clothing retailer Mountain Warehouse is opening stores in Australia and seeking to grab a slice out of a crowded market.

Mountain Warehouse will open its first store in Australia on July 15 in the Brisbane Airport precinct.

A major British outdoor and lifestyle clothing retailer is aiming to take on the Australian market with plans to open four new stores by the end of the year.

Mountain Warehouse will make its Australian bricks and mortar debut at Vicinity Centres’ DFO at Skygate in the Brisbane Airport precinct on July 15, positioning itself as a low-cost family focused alternative to Kathmandu, Macpac, Anaconda and The North Face.

The opening marks the beginning of ambitious expansion plans to bring the brand to stores in Australia, after operating an online presence for the past seven years, annually turning over about $10m.

In the second half of 2024 Mountain Warehouse will also open stores at DFO Moorabbin, DFO Essendon and DFO Uni Hill in Melbourne.

Mountain Warehouse currently caters for about four million customers a year – featuring men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing as well as footwear and equipment. About 30 per cent of its turnover is currently from online sales. The new Australian stores are part of a global rollout of 50 stores in 2024.

Mountain Warehouse founder and chief executive Mark Neale.

London-based founder and chief executive Mark Neale said Mountain Warehouse’s offering was different to its rivals and many products were up to 30 per cent cheaper than comparable goods sold by the opposition.

“Our offer is a bit broader than some of the other guys and its definitely better value for money,” he said. “That’s always been our positioning. It’s more of a family offer. We sell a lot of kidswear. Most of the other guys who you might think of as in our competitive space have pictures of guys with an ice axe hanging off a glacier. It’s about value for money. We have a pictures of a family taking their kids for a walk with their dog in the woods.”

Established in 1997, Mountain Warehouse will have more than 400 stores around the world by the end of the year, mainly in the UK, with about 50 in Canada, a small presence in the US and stores in Poland, Germany and Austria. New Zealand is currently its third-largest market with 24 stores.

For the year ending February 2024 Mountain Warehouse recorded sales of £386m ($738m) and a pre-tax profit £26.2m.

Mountain Warehouse says its offers value for money and is more of a family offering.

Mr Neale would not make any specific forecast about its new Australian business, which he said will have “the full offer” including a summer range of shorts, T-shirts, thongs and travel-related products such as backpacks.

“We will see how the four stores go and if they get off to a good start we’ll be looking at more next year as well as a distribution centre in Melbourne,” he said. “Six years ago we opened a store in Queenstown New Zealand and we didn’t know whether that would be one-of-one or one-of-many and it went well.

“In six years, including three during the Covid pandemic, we built it out to 24.

“There’s a lot more people in Australia than in New Zealand so we’d like to think we will do more than that.”