catch com

April 29, 2025

Catch.com.au: The Rise, The Struggles, and The Final Chapter

You’ve probably noticed the headlines: Catch.com.au, once a staple in Aussie online shopping, is shutting down for good on April 30, 2025. It feels a bit surreal, given how big a role Catch once played in shaping e-commerce in Australia. Let’s walk through how it happened.

From daily deals to digital giant

Back in 2006, Catch started life as “Catch of the Day.” The premise was simple but addictive: one hot deal every day, and when it was gone, it was gone. Think of it like lining up for Boxing Day sales but doing it in your pajamas at midnight. People loved the thrill of racing to grab a bargain.

The founders, brothers Gabby and Hezi Leibovich, built on that momentum. Over time, Catch expanded into electronics, fashion, groceries, toys, and more. Eventually, it stopped being just a deals site and turned into a full-blown marketplace where third-party sellers listed products alongside Catch’s own stock. By the late 2010s, it was pulling in millions of customers and had become one of the few Australian names that could compete with the likes of Kogan and eBay.

In 2019, Wesfarmers—the retail giant behind Kmart, Target, and Bunnings—swooped in and bought Catch for $230 million. The idea was clear: Catch would be the digital muscle in Wesfarmers’ push into e-commerce.

What Catch brought to the table

Catch wasn’t just a storefront. It had infrastructure, tech, and a brand that connected with bargain hunters.

The warehouses: Catch had massive fulfilment centres in Truganina (VIC) and Moorebank (NSW). In theory, they could rival Amazon’s operations in Australia.
The marketplace model: Instead of stocking everything, Catch let thousands of sellers list products. This kept the catalog huge without ballooning inventory risk.
The digital know-how: Catch came with a team steeped in e-commerce, ready to plug into Wesfarmers’ OneDigital project, which was building data systems, customer analytics, and the OnePass subscription program (free shipping and perks across Kmart, Target, and others).
The bargain image: In a market where Amazon was all about convenience, Catch leaned on its identity as the place where deals lived.

It looked like a match made in retail heaven.

The cracks start showing

But running a marketplace in Australia isn’t as easy as it looks. The cracks began to widen around 2022.

Competition ramped up fast. Chinese juggernauts Temu and Shein entered the scene, selling clothes, gadgets, and homewares at prices Catch couldn’t realistically match. Imagine walking into a flea market where every stall has prices that make even Kmart look expensive—that’s what Aussie shoppers suddenly had at their fingertips.

Amazon also stepped up its game in Australia, pouring money into local fulfilment centres and leaning hard on Prime. Free two-day shipping became normal for many households. Catch’s promise of “cheap and cheerful” started to look less compelling when delivery felt slower and prices weren’t always the lowest.

The financials tell the story. In 2023, Catch lost $163 million. In 2024, it was another $96 million down. For the half-year ending December 2024, losses were forecast at $38–40 million. These aren’t just small bumps; they’re red flags that the business model wasn’t keeping up.

And those huge warehouses? They were operating at less than 50% capacity. In logistics, empty space is like a leaking pipe—it quietly bleeds money.

Why Wesfarmers pulled the plug

By early 2025, Wesfarmers had a choice: keep burning cash or fold Catch into its bigger brands. The decision was blunt. Catch would cease trading by April 30. Its fulfilment centres would move under the Kmart Group, and the digital smarts would be absorbed into Wesfarmers’ broader OneDigital platform.

From a strategy standpoint, it makes sense. Wesfarmers has scale through its physical stores. Every day, millions of people walk through Kmart, Target, and Bunnings. By redirecting Catch’s infrastructure into these existing operations, Wesfarmers avoids duplication while still upgrading its online capabilities.

The company admitted something that’s painfully obvious in hindsight: broad-based marketplaces are hard to make profitable without serious scale. Amazon has it. Temu and Shein have it. Catch, despite its loyal following, just didn’t.

What happens now

Catch is still processing orders until April 30, 2025, but gift cards have already been pulled from sale. About 190 full-time employees are affected, with Wesfarmers saying around 100 of them could be redeployed to other divisions. Still, that leaves many facing redundancy.

Catch Connect—the mobile phone service tied to the brand—will keep running. It was operated separately and isn’t part of the shutdown.

For customers, the closure is bittersweet. Some will miss scrolling through Catch for oddball deals, while others already moved on to Temu or Shein long ago.

Why Catch’s story matters

Catch’s shutdown isn’t just the end of a retailer. It’s a signpost for how brutally competitive online shopping has become. If a household name backed by one of Australia’s largest corporations can’t survive, smaller players will need to rethink their strategies.

The big lesson? Competing on price alone is a losing game when global titans can undercut you. The survivors will likely be niche operators who double down on unique products, faster logistics, or experiences that overseas giants can’t replicate.

For Wesfarmers, Catch wasn’t a total loss. It acted as a digital training ground, giving the group skills and systems it can now use to sharpen its bigger retail brands. The investment was expensive, but the learnings may prove valuable over the long haul.

FAQs

Why is Catch.com.au shutting down?
Because it couldn’t compete profitably with global giants like Amazon, Temu, and Shein. Losses stacked up—over $163 million in 2023 alone—and Wesfarmers decided to fold its assets into other brands.

What happens after April 30, 2025?
The site will stop trading. Warehouses will transfer to the Kmart Group. Some staff will be redeployed, but many roles will disappear.

Can I still use Catch gift cards?
Only until April 30, 2025. New gift cards stopped being sold in January 2025.

Does this affect Catch Connect?
No. Catch Connect is run separately and will continue as usual.

Who owns Catch?
Wesfarmers, the same group that owns Kmart, Target, Bunnings, and Officeworks.

What does this mean for Australian online shopping?
It’s another reminder that local players face steep odds against international platforms. The space is consolidating, and only those with scale or a clear niche can thrive.

Catch’s journey from scrappy daily-deal site to high-profile acquisition and finally to closure is a microcosm of modern retail. It shows how quickly momentum can shift, how scale trumps sentiment, and how even familiar names aren’t guaranteed survival in the age of global e-commerce.