David Jones sales drop … Pandora Australia gets shutdown date … Facebook to launch affordable VR headsets

By Dominic Powell and Emma Koehn.

Department store David Jones has stumbled in its like-for-like sales over the past year, seeing a decline of 0.7%. This marks the first time the retailer’s sales have dropped since it was acquired by South African retailer Woolworths Holdings, reports AAP.

The company blamed the sales drop on a lack of consumer confidence in Australia, noting the retailer’s market share had continued to grow

“Whilst relevant market share has grown, sales growth slowed in the second half (at DJs), as falling consumer confidence resulted in lower footfall,” the company said in a trading update today.

Woolworths Holdings other Australian retail brand, Country Road, also saw a decline in like-for-like sales, dropping 0.4%.

Pandora Australia gets service shutdown date

Music streaming provider Pandora announced three weeks ago it would be shuttering its Australian operations after re-launching into the market in 2012, and now the business has given a final date for its departure of July 31, reports Mumbrella.

“Since we opened our doors in 2012, the team grew our user base to over one million monthly listeners, delivered market-shaping advertising and retail distribution deals and executed highly successful music events and sponsorships,” director of business development and partnerships at Pandora Rick Gleave said in a statement.

“To that end, I’d like to thank our employees as well as advertisers, automotive and consumer device partners for their support. And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, I’d like to thank our listeners for giving us the opportunity to connect them with the music they love.”

The news comes at what seems to be a rocky time for businesses in the music industry, with streaming service Soundcloud recently announcing it would be cutting 40% of its staff.

Facebook to launch affordable VR headsets

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is out and about meeting the American people this week, but closer to the headquarters of the social media giant, there’s movement on affordable virtual reality tech.

A spokesperson for Facebook-owned tech imprint Oculus has said there are plans to unveil a low-cost, wireless VR headset to the market by the final part of 2018.

Bloomberg reports the product would retail for around $200 and be able to be used with your garden variety computer or smartphone, instead of the high-end tech previously needed to run quality VR products.