Tony Caughey: Smith & Caughey's Chair on the continued operation of their Queen Street store

Historic Auckland department store Smith and Caughey's is living to fight another day.  

The 144 year old business announced in May it would close next year, but today revealed measures to let it stay open. 

It will downsize physical trading to the ground floor of its Queen Street store, cut about 100 staff and close the Newmarket branch, and ramp up online operations. 

Chair Tony Caughey told Mike Hosking that it won’t be the scale it was before and it won’t be the same sort of retail operation, but they think they can make a go of it. 

He said they’re shrinking their brick and mortar because they think it’s appropriate for the market, so they’ll see how the balance with online retail plays out. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.