By Emma Young
A city institution will soon be no more as Elizabeth’s Secondhand Bookshop pulls out of Perth CBD after more than 30 years.
While the landmark retailer has inhabited multiple shopfronts in the Hay Street/King Street area over that period, its perennial dark green-and-white decor made it instantly recognisable to fans no matter the street number.
Elizabeth’s Secondhand Bookshop is withdrawing from the Perth CBD. Credit: Emma Young
Director Alexandra Taylor said a significant decline in footfall in that part of Hay Street was behind the move.
“Sadly, the turnover in the last half a dozen years has been downhill – a decline very much accelerated by the work-from-home culture that began during COVID-19,” she said.
“There are simply far fewer pedestrians on the street, with a resultant downturn in passing trade.
“As one can see, this once bustling area is now dotted with ‘for lease’ signs and empty shops.”
The observation is borne out by the numbers, with JLL’s latest report showing the overall CBD retail vacancy rate at 20.6 per cent in the first half of 2024.
“We have been a family-owned bookshop now for 52 years and I confess that we are emotionally very sad to depart the Perth CBD,” Taylor said.
“We were proud to be Perth city’s oldest bookshop.”
The move marks a continuing slow contraction for Elizabeth’s, one of Australia’s largest secondhand book operations.
In the early 2000s, there was also a second CBD Elizabeth’s outlet on Barrack Street. A Fremantle mall outlet, the third of the company’s Fremantle locations at the time, closed down in 2013 and another outlet closed down on Subiaco’s Rokeby Road in 2015. There were also once two locations in Sydney, with one remaining.
But Taylor said the two outlets remaining in Fremantle were doing exceptionally well and would continue to trade seven days a week, and the Sydney branch in Newtown was similarly trading very healthily.
“We have recently been happy to sign long renewals to the leases at the Fremantle and Newtown premises,” she said.
“The bookshops will continue to be owned by the same family that opened Elizabeth’s first branch in Nedlands in 1973.
“Onwards and upwards is our motto.”
The Perth branch will close at the end of trading on Friday, February 7, with stock to be redistributed to the Fremantle stores.
Perth book lovers will be relieved to know the net number of bookshops in the inner city will increase, with independent store Boundless Books having opened its doors on the Oxford Street cafe strip in Leederville on Saturday, and Mount Street Books, another independent, also recently opening its doors in West Perth.
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