Just three months after the opening of Castlemaine’s new Woolworths supermarket, the town is set to see the opening of another major retail outlet.
Castlemaine’s new Reject Shop will open its doors this Thursday morning, September 11.
Local residents have been keenly watching the development of the new store at 112-116 Barker Street in recent months and there was a huge amount of speculation about what the new offering may be. Opinions ranging from Aldi to Maccas and another bottle shop to Krispy Kreme Donuts.
In early June our sister paper the Castlemaine Mail learned the new space was set to house iconic Aussie brand – The Reject Shop.
However, news broke last week that after 44 years serving the keen bargain hunters and budget-conscious members of the Australian community, The Reject Shop was bought out by Canadian discount giant Dollarama Inc in July and is set to get a revamp and rebrand.
The exterior of the new Castlemaine store has the traditional Reject Shop signage but a spokesperson for the discount brand confirmed the interior shelving of the store was fitted out in the new look Dollarama colour scheme making it among a handful of Australian stores to feature the new layout.
The new ‘supermarket style’ grid layout features long, parallel aisles. Dollarama has also registered dozens of local trademarks as it gets set to introduce a swag of new brands and products to the Australian market.
Dollarama reportedly has huge plans for The Reject Shop brand with lower prices, better products, a new name with stores to be rebadged Dollarama, and almost doubling its size to 700 stores by 2034 – which would make it a massive national chain as big as Aldi or Coles and could pose a threat to Aussie rivals such as Kmart and Target (447 stores) and Big W (179 stores).
The grand opening of the all new Castlemaine store will take place at 8.30am this Thursday morning. Watch this space!
