10 September 2008

DFO Canberra opens on Friday

| johnboy
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For reasons that are slightly beyond me there’s a huge amount of buzz out there about the opening on Friday of the Direct Factory Outlets (DFO) location in Fyshwick.

Anyway, the doors open at 10am this Friday.

So the wait is nearly over.

Other obligations notwithstanding we’ll try and get out there to take a look and get back to you. Any experienced shoppers wanting to contribute their expertise should email john@the-riotact.com .

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I went down last night and was quite disappointed. I thought they would have late night shopping on opening Friday! Went to Bunnings instead – and yes it was fantastic.

OzChick said :

and people got in without passes, as they didn’t even check.

Yeah, they’re the ones who didn’t have to surrender their address/email info to the Spammers of DFO!

heinous said :

Went to the DFO today, was very disappointed at the traffic arrangements. I left at 6pm (closing time) and it took 30 minutes to get out of the car park. If you plan on visiting I recommend you get out of their by 5:30pm or you’ll get stuck like I did.

hahaha I left at about quarter to 6 😛

figured exactly what you just posted, looked at the time, and got the hell out of there 😛

So the wait is nearly over.

Who was waiting??

At 6:30 there were queues to enter and to leave after being told it had closed. I thought opening hours would have been checked on all advertising material but there were lots of people trying to get in.

Went to the DFO today, was very disappointed at the traffic arrangements. I left at 6pm (closing time) and it took 30 minutes to get out of the car park. If you plan on visiting I recommend you get out of their by 5:30pm or you’ll get stuck like I did.

I got a couple of good bargins I would not have found in the store in the shopping centres. Portmans was a great store for work stuff! Big discounts on some items, and the extra 20% off made a difference!!

So how did people fare last night?? Spend lots of money??

There were heaps of women there (not surprising) and people got in without passes, as they didn’t even check.

Holden Caulfield8:50 am 12 Sep 08

Boo hoo, you 20% snobs can run along then, haha.

i got 75% off some shirts, 90 down to 20.

yes 20% off isn’t that great, but like anything you have to pick and choose. If you were going to buy it anyway, it’s better than the original price.

However if you’re just looking for random bargains then you probably need to visit a few times and keep an eye out. I got a $230 Esprit coat for $60 at DFO Brissy (obviously not much need for coats up there and it was coming into summer).

20% off? Yuck. I got some shoes at La Scala the other weekend that were 50% off. That’s my kind of off. 20% isn’t a bargain. There is the odd bargain to be had at Brand Depot, but in the main, spoon-fed bargains aren’t really bargains. Mind you, half price shoes that are still $155 probably aren’t either.

And for those who were interested, the free gift was a white calico bag with blue trim ( I was there for the book shop )

Parking was really bad at 6:15, as if they hadn’t planned for 3,000 people to turn up at once.

Holden Caulfield8:48 pm 11 Sep 08

Back from the DFO opening night. I picked up some shoes at 20% off, a one night only discount. Or so they said.

I didn’t have much time and subsequently missed out on quite a few stores I would have otherwise looked at.

I haven’t been to Brand Depot for ages, but did go shortly after it opened. The vibe of DFO as a new centre is much better than BD, and from memory, there’s a greater variety/quality of stores. It’s also more conveniently located too.

I’m not sure BD will be around for Christmas 2009.

Another lot of shops which will be popular for a month or 2 before the novalty wears off… It doesn’t have much that any other shopping centre in Canberra has. The “bargains” aren’t that much of a bargain from what I’ve seen too.

Sammy said :

Actually, it seems like the DFO website has just left the entire purple section off the store listing, which as far as i’m concerned are the drawcard stores. Doh!

When they announced it’s impending opening a month or two ago they said that the “homemaker” retailers wouldn’t open until later and would open progressively before christmas.

He’s going to go through planes at a rate of knots then. A plane for the Tralee site, a plane for DFO….

Mr Evil said :

Will Snowy be launching any last minute court action to have the place shut down?

He’ll arrange for a plane to be flown into the building.

oh I can’t wait! I have been to the Sydney and Brissy ones heaps of times and always get heaps of bargains… FINALLY we get one here!

grunge_hippy4:56 pm 10 Sep 08

i thought we were getting an IKEA?!?!?!

PickedANickname3:45 pm 10 Sep 08

The hours are great!

Looking forward to the kid stuff shops.

I’m going to check it out this weekend hopefully. I wonder what this means for Brand Depot. A fair few of the shops in Brand Depot are vacant, plus they appear to be extending it as well. Whats the deal there?

don’t like DFO? don’t go! just don’t whine and bitch about it…

I wonder what will be there in place of the starbucks.

My guess is that it’ll suck me in at some point. Going to these places feels kind of wrong, but kind of good.

I’m going tomorrow!!! (and i’ll take photos, if i can be bothered..)

Jonathon Reynolds2:29 pm 10 Sep 08

Somewhat impressive that trading is 7 days a week – 10am to 8pm.
Looks like every night can be “late night shopping” if you are in to that sort of thing.

I would love to go and report back on the new DFO … but I have been officially banned (by my husband) 🙁

I can only imagine they have very stringent quality assurance, but very poor quality control.

Tarted-down don’t you mean?

You can’t imagine all these brand name stores would have such a swathe of cast-offs, overruns, last season’s etc to fill five or whatever bloody DFO warehouse shops across the country.

Just sounds like a tarted up Westfield.

It’s hilarious that it is called Direct Factory Outlet….ummmm…. don’t think so.

10am? in the morning? Well the people with money to spend are off earning it at that time! At 10am you’ll have housewives with screaming kids trying to park their barges. Good place to stay away from I reckon.

Sammy said :

Yeah, I think DFO’s website is just a bit fuxored. They don’t list any of the major retailers that are listed on the floorplan, ie:

* JB Hi-Fi
* Clive Anthony’s (not Joyce Mayne as I previously mentioned 🙂
* Nick Scali
* Freedom
* Beacon Lighting
* Howards Storage World
* Rays Outdoors
* Captain Snooze
* Oz Design
* BBQ’s Galore

A small oversight.

Hi Sammy,

I think that some of the stores like Freedom are part of the “Homemaker Hub” which is kind of seperate to DFO and opening at a later date….

Holden Caulfield11:57 am 10 Sep 08

Well I’ll be going tomorrow night. 😛

I would have thought that to be a “Direct Factory Outlet”, a store would have to be in, or at least adjacent to, the factory.

Actually, it seems like the DFO website has just left the entire purple section off the store listing, which as far as i’m concerned are the drawcard stores. Doh!

Will Snowy be launching any last minute court action to have the place shut down?

Yeah, I think DFO’s website is just a bit fuxored. They don’t list any of the major retailers that are listed on the floorplan, ie:

* JB Hi-Fi
* Clive Anthony’s (not Joyce Mayne as I previously mentioned 🙂
* Nick Scali
* Freedom
* Beacon Lighting
* Howards Storage World
* Rays Outdoors
* Captain Snooze
* Oz Design
* BBQ’s Galore

A small oversight.

Wide Boy Jake10:43 am 10 Sep 08

JB HiFi have a sign on the outside entry so they will be there. Pity Ikea’s snubbed the region again . . .

I was going to say that it’s more interesting than Brand Outlet because they have a better range of stores, but having just looked at the store directory on the linked website, it actually looks quite lame.

What happened to JB Hi-Fi, Joyce Mayne, Freedom etc? None of those are in the store list on the official website.

Obviously not, or the free market wouldn’t be providing us with more 😉

apparently not…?

Haven’t we got enough shops already? Fair dinkum.

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