Curious Planet (Australian Geographic) Stores to Close Down

Sad End to Australian Icon

One of our favourite Aussie retail brands is about to close its stores. The much loved Australian Geographic stores are about to close their doors as they are unable to find a buyer. The Australian Geographic Stores only recently changed their name to Curious Planet, but it seems they could not turn things around and will be closing their 62 Australian stores within weeks. The only 'Silver Lining' as they say, is the clearance sale which could see consumers pick up a bargain.

Australian Geographic / Curious Planet

In October 2019, Australian Geographic Holdings Pty Ltd announced it was terminating the licence granted to University Co-operative Bookshop Ltd to use the name Australian Geographic.

They changed their name to 'My Geographic', but there was a claim that the new name was too similar to 'Australian Geographic', so they quickly changed the name to 'Curious Planet'. You can read more about this name change in this story by SMH.

Email Announcement from Curious Planet

Here is the email we received from Curious Planet (Formerly Australian Geographic) at 7pm on the 10th of January 2019.



To our curious customers, Most of you would be aware that in November we made the difficult decision to place Curious Planet into Voluntary Administration in order to explore restructuring options and to find a new buyer for the business. We are still in discussions with a number of interested parties who have expressed an interest in Curious Planet however we are sad to tell you that a definitive buyer has not been found for the business as of yet. Accordingly, Curious Planet will begin closing its 62 Australian stores over the coming weeks. Every cloud has a silver lining. We still have millions of dollars of your favourite educational toys that we must sell before we close. Accordingly, we will be launching a Closing Down Sale tomorrow with significant savings store-wide. We hope that you will take advantage of the chance to enjoy once-in-a-lifetime savings on the products you love. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our most curious customers for the support they have shown to Curious Planet and to our staff. We are so proud of our store teams and we have been inundated with positive feedback about their customer service, resilience and commitment during this difficult time. On behalf of everyone at Curious Planet, we hope to see you over the remaining weeks in-store and online.

Will Curious Planet be Saved?

This is uncertain. Given our current retail economic situation, it isn't looking good. But here at STEM Mayhem, we certainly hope a buyer is found.

