Former David Jones staffer says loss of personal service helped hollow out the retailer

David Jones is set to close many of its 38 stores and make thousands of staff redundant, and a former part-time employee says the retreat of personalised in-store service helped strip the department store of what made it distinctive.

The account comes from someone who worked as a lift operator at David Jones’ Market Street store in 1980, operating the old lift machinery and making the floor announcements that guided shoppers through the store’s departments.

Those announcements were part of the ritual of shopping at David Jones. The former operator recalled calling out the departments as customers rode between floors:

“Ground floor: perfumery, stationery and leather goods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food. Going up …”

Other commentators have also highlighted the memorable roles inside David Jones. Columnist Peter FitzSimons, writing about the retailer’s demise, described the store’s lift attendants and their theatrical announcements as a notable feature of the shopping experience.

The ex-lift operator said the job also involved a dose of enforced cheerfulness towards older regular customers. He recalled being required to laugh along with the same jokes repeated many times by patrons, including the line: “Well, son, I’m guessing this is a pretty up and down sort of job.”

Personal services such as bra-fitting and tailored advice on suits were, in his experience, what many customers associated with David Jones. Female shoppers he spoke to remembered being taken to the store’s bra-fitting department, run by no-nonsense fitters, while he was later reassured by a sales assistant who helped him choose a suit for television work.

The former employee argues those hands-on roles, the fitters, the long-serving sales assistants and the lift attendants who helped shape the shop-floor atmosphere, have largely disappeared from the modern retail model, and that loss contributed to David Jones losing its edge.

Analysts and business pages have explored many reasons for David Jones’ decline, including competition from online retailers, changing consumer habits and rising costs. The former staff perspective adds a cultural angle, suggesting the erosion of distinctive in-store services altered customer loyalty and the brand’s relationship with shoppers.

The collapse will have direct impacts on store staff and local retail precincts, with the expected closures and redundancies removing roles that do not easily transfer to online retail. The former lift operator said he mourns those employees and their skills, closing with the dry recollection that his old job was, as one regular put it, “an up and down sort of job.”