By NOEL MURPHY
A NEW Lifeline shop on Geelong West’s Pakington St is helping the service fight back against a raft of financial challenges attacking its bottom line.
Lifeline Geelong last month reported a turnaround in its fortunes of almost $100,000 over the past year, putting it squarely in the red as rising wages, costs and expensive new protocols take their toll.
But Graham Rees, the service’s retail general manager in Geelong, said a bump in trade over the past month could help ease the backward slide.
“Our sales have gone up three per cent after a really slow start to this financial year but that’s indicative of the malaise in the retail industry,” Mr Rees said.
“It’s starting to pick up a bit now but our expenses have gone up – with insurance rates, tip fees and so on.”
Lifeline Geelong has 40 telephone counsellors and another 60 staff working across five shops in Geelong, Drysdale and Colac.
Despite an annual boost of $50,000 in government funding 18 months ago, the Geelong branch was forced to draw on $40,000 from its reserves to keep afloat this year.
Mr Rees hoped the new Geelong West store would help arrest the downturn.
“It’s one reason we went to Pako. There’s a lot of foot traffic there, a lot of people.
“It’s created a bit of interest and slowly but surely we’re getting more people.”
The new store features bric-a-brac, crockery, jewellery, clothes, furniture and more at the corner of Maitland St.
