It’s taken five years but Wesfarmers boss Rob Scott has raised the white flag on the company’s expensive retail experiment which involved forking out $230 million to a couple of charmed entrepreneurs for online marketplace Catch.com.au.

In a case of buyer’s remorse but sellers’ delight, the Catch founders Gabby Leibovich and Hezi Leibovich walked away even wealthier while Wesfarmers struggled to post any profit from the online marketplace operator, sustaining years of losses.

Wesfarmers chief executive Rob Scott

So Wesfarmers has taken the decision to shut down Catch – and have its department store chain Kmart pick up the infrastructure scraps, including warehousing. It will no longer operate as a standalone marketplace, but it will be a painful memory of a strategic mistake.

Catch, which Wesfarmers bought in 2019, was supposed to inject expertise and a growth culture into the West Australian conglomerate’s retail brands.

Fast forward........

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