Dean Salakas’ 2025 Retail Naughty & Nice List: Key Lessons for Australian Retailers

Dean Salakas’ 2025 Retail Naughty & Nice List: Key Lessons for Australian Retailers

This month, Dean Salakas (Retail Doctor Group) released his highly anticipated 2025 Australian Retail Naughty & Nice List — a definitive review of performance across our nation’s leading retail brands. This list is far more than a ranking: it reflects the core dynamics shaping retail success and failure in 2025, and delivers critical takeaways for all retail operators navigating our competitive market.

We have summarised Dean Salakas’ key findings and curated the core industry reflections for you below, for your reference and strategic planning.

✅ Core Highlights from Dean Salakas’ 2025 Naughty & Nice Retailer List

Dean Salakas’ core premise is clear: Retail success in 2025 has not been driven by luck, but by clarity of positioning, cost discipline, regulatory compliance, operational consistency and timely strategic action.

⚠️ The Naughty List | Key Challenges & Failures

Retailers on this list (including Mosaic Brands Ltd, City Beach, The Good Guys, Target Australia, David Jones, Jeanswest and more) faced significant operational and financial headwinds this year — including administration, liquidation, substantial regulatory fines, revenue decline and store closures.The root causes shared across this cohort are consistent: unsustainable cost structures and years of accumulated losses, critical compliance failures with long-term reputational damage, blind expansion masking weak store-level profitability, structural inefficiencies (high fixed costs, vague market positioning), and delayed strategic change in the face of market shifts. Even strong brand recognition was not enough to offset poor unit economics for many of these brands.

✅ The Nice List | Benchmark Success & Strengths

By contrast, Australia’s top-performing retailers (JB Hi-Fi, Bunnings, Chemist Warehouse, Kmart, ALDI, Officeworks, Harvey Norman and others) delivered exceptional and consistent results in 2025, with strong revenue, healthy profit margins, robust cash flow and high returns on capital.These leading brands all hold core competitive strengths: strict cost and inventory discipline, rock-solid compliance standards, scale and network advantages, mature private label portfolios, resilient balance sheets, and a willingness to adapt — including restructuring, digital investment and experience-led retail innovation. All have mastered the fundamental pillars of sustainable retail success.

🎯 Critical Industry Reflections & Key Takeaways (Derived from Dean Salakas’ Analysis)

For the Australian retail industry, this list is a masterclass in what defines resilience and growth in our current market. These insights are essential for every retail business, large and small:

1. Fundamentals over fortune: Luck has no place in modern retail. Success is earned through laser-sharp clarity on your core customer base, unwavering cost discipline, and compliance embedded into every operational decision — not an afterthought. No brand is immune to failure if these basics are ignored.
2. Compliance is non-negotiable competitive advantage: The record fines handed to City Beach and The Good Guys serve as a stark industry warning. Regulatory compliance is not a cost, but a foundational requirement for trust and longevity. A single compliance misstep can cause irreversible reputational and financial harm that far outweighs short-term gains.
3. Growth must be profitable growth: Rapid, unplanned expansion has proven a fatal trap for many retailers (colette by colette hayman, Ally Fashion). Scale without sustainable unit economics only amplifies risk; strong brand recognition alone cannot rescue a business with flawed operational fundamentals.
4. Adapt early, or fall behind: Delayed strategic change is the single biggest risk for retailers in 2025. All brands on the Naughty List shared a failure to address structural weaknesses or pivot in response to market pressure — a mistake that leaves no margin for error in Australia’s hyper-competitive retail landscape. Even top performers (Kathmandu, T2 Tea) have invested in restructuring, digital transformation and AI/ data innovation to stay ahead.
5. Positioning clarity wins in crowded markets: Brands like Target Australia continue to struggle due to a lack of distinct positioning in the value retail space, compounded by high fixed costs and oversized store footprints. This underscores a critical truth: in a saturated market, clear differentiation and laser focus on core customer value are non-negotiable.

✅ Final Key Insight from Dean Salakas

The standout retail winners of 2025 are not perfect — but they are intentional. They know exactly who they serve, they control costs rigorously, they operate with compliance at their core, and they embrace change proactively and early. This is the blueprint for retail resilience in Australia, now and into 2026.

We hope these insights provide valuable context for your business strategy as we head into the new year, and we look forward to bringing together Australia’s retail leaders to connect, learn and innovate at the Retail Show Australia 2026.