.  Sixteen months later, Stax entered receivership. It is one of the sharper falls in recent Australian retail memory: from Young Rich List to FTI Consulting in four years. The fallout is still unfolding. Customers with outstanding orders – including pre-sales on items that were never manufactured – are in limbo, awaiting the outcome between receivers and overseas suppliers who are themselves owed money.  The Pitt Street flagship is dark, the online store is closed, and FTI Consulting’s receivers are working to determine whether any version of Stax can be salvaged – and for whom. Inside Retail learned that the sale process has commenced, with non-binding indicative offers due on July 13. But the story of Stax’s fall under the Robertsons is not simply one of bad luck. It is a cautionary tale about the seductive pull of physical retail, the brutal economics of the post-Covid trading environment and the dangers of a brand expanding faster than its foundations. A brand built on belief Stax’s origin story reads almost like mythology in Australian entrepreneurial circles. Don Robertson founded the brand in 2015 out of his mother’s spare bedroom in Perth, carrying $80,000 in personal debt – the remnants of a failed supplement business called Muscle Stax. His wife, Matilda, joined a year later, and together they built something genuinely unusual: a premium activewear label that offered sizing from women’s 4 to 24, positioning itself as inclusive and community-driven at a time when the activewear market was largely the domain of Nike, Lululemon and a handful of glossy international brands. The brand’s DNA was always online. Limited-edition drops, influencer collaborations and a highly engaged social media community drove growth that felt more like a streetwear brand than a sportswear label. Celebrities including Jennifer Lopez, Lizzo, Megan Fox and Hailey Bieber were spotted in Stax pieces and by 2022, the brand was reportedly turning over more than $30 million annually. That same year, Don and Matilda appeared on the Australian Financial Review’s Young Rich List, estimated to be worth $52 million. They had also launched a sister label, Secondleft, bringing high-fashion aesthetics into the brand family. When Inside Retail sat down with the founders in early 2025, the mood was expansionist. “We want Stax to be the first-choice athleisure brand in Australia, which puts Australia on the map as far as sportswear brands are concerned,” Don told Inside Retail. Matilda described Stax as “more than just a pair of tights” – a community, a safe space, a brand that people come to and “feel welcome and feel heard”. It was compelling, and the cover reflected that belief. The great store bet  The pivot to physical retail began, as many bold decisions do, with an overwhelmingly positive signal. When Stax opened its first pop-up store in 2022, 1000 customers queued in torrential rain. “That reminded us that people still like the touch and feel product experience,” Don reflected later. Over the following 18 months, the brand ran pop-ups across the country, listening to where its community was asking it to open. The pop-ups worked. And so, with cash from strong online sales recycled back into the business, Stax committed to a full bricks-and-mortar rollout. By December 2024, Don was posting on LinkedIn about the opening of their 12th store, at Westfield Chatswood – the culmination of a rapid expansion that included stores at major shopping centres across Sydney and beyond. When we reported on the flagship at Westfield Sydney in our February 2025 cover story, the store count had reached its peak. The brand’s evolution from pop-up to permanent seemed proof that a digitally native brand could make the physical leap. What Stax – and many others – had not fully modelled was the structural difference between pop-up retail and permanent tenancies. Pop-ups carry short-term costs and generate buzz; flagship stores carry long-term leases, staffing obligations, inventory commitments and overheads that compound across an entire portfolio. The “covid boom” in discretionary spending that had buoyed Stax’s online revenues was already unwinding by the time the leases were signed. “We completely underestimated the tough economic environment that would be born out of this year, and it affected us a hell of a lot more than we anticipated,” Don told news.com.au in September 2025. The retreat begins By mid-2025, it was clear the store strategy was not working. Stax quietly closed several locations before Don and Matilda went public in September 2025, announcing the closure of four more stores as the brand pivoted back toward its online roots. Following those closures, only the Sydney CBD flagship at Westfield Pitt Street and the Liverpool store remained. The interviews the couple gave at the time were striking for their candour – and, in hindsight, for the severity of the pressure they were already under. “Every day we were waking up wondering, ‘how are we going to pay the rent, how are we going to keep the electricity on,’” Don said. The couple also disclosed they had sold three luxury vehicles, including a Lamborghini and a Porsche, to redirect capital into the business. “The business will always come first, so obviously we had to sell a lot of the luxuries, but we’ve made the cuts necessary to save the business,” Don said. It was Matilda who offered what now reads as the most prescient line of those interviews: “With bricks and mortar, you are so removed from the customer, and it doesn’t give that true connection to brand. What Stax has always been about is facilitating community with events where we put the customer first and not focus necessarily on having to convert a sale.” It was a frank admission – that the very thing Stax had built its identity around, genuine customer connection, had actually been diluted by the stores it had opened to chase that connection. Speaking on the Two Broke Chicks podcast, the founders were even blunter: “We’re an online brand, it got to a point where we had to take a step back. We gave it a go, but the stores weren’t a great decision.” The closures significantly reduced the workforce, with casual staff bearing the brunt of the job losses. Stax was simultaneously reporting “its best product run yet” online while dismantling its physical estate – a contradiction that reflected the increasingly bifurcated nature of the business. Entering receivership The pivot back to online was not enough. On 24 June 2026, National Australia Bank appointed Joseph Hansell and Asjadi Hone of FTI Consulting as receivers and managers of Stax and its associated entities. The receivership came just four years after the founders had appeared on the AFR Young Rich List. FTI’s initial statement attempted to hold the door open. “Stax is a well-known Australian brand with strong customer support. Stax has done something genuinely impressive, proving that premium activewear does not have to choose between performance and style,” said receiver Joseph Hansell. The business would trade as usual, FTI said, while an urgent operational assessment was undertaken. Within days, the Stax website told a different story. The Pitt Street Westfield store was closed. The online store had stopped accepting new orders. “The Receivers are actively working with key suppliers, logistics providers and other stakeholders to explore whether and how trading can resume,” the site read. “While we understand this uncertainty is frustrating, we are not in a position to provide a timeframe at this stage.” Customers left in limbo For Stax’s community – the very constituency the brand had always said was at its heart – the receivership created immediate and significant disruption. Customers who placed orders before 24 June are facing uncertain outcomes. Pre-sale orders, where items had not yet been manufactured or shipped, are the most at risk, dependent on overseas suppliers and freight partners who are themselves owed money. Standard orders awaiting fulfilment face similar uncertainty, with delivery contingent on reaching an agreement with the brand’s third-party logistics provider. Orders placed on 24 and 25 June – the day the receivers were appointed and the day after – are under review, with refunds via payment providers being explored. Customers holding gift cards and credit notes have been told these are not being honoured. Those seeking to return faulty goods have been directed to pursue chargebacks through their payment provider.  Across social channels, the customer experience has been anything but consistent. Some report swift resolutions: “Message them on Insta – they issued a refund straight away, and I can see it pending on my PayPal… fingers crossed I actually get the funds back,” one customer wrote. Another said, “I messaged them on Insta for a refund, and they replied within five minutes with an email saying my order has been refunded.” Others, however, describe weeks of silence and shifting timelines. “I placed an order the first week of May… I was told pre-sale items would take 4–6 weeks. Now it’s almost hitting the eight-week mark and still nothing,” one customer said. Another echoed the experience: “Six weeks later, I got another response saying they will ship as soon as the items arrive at the warehouse. Still waiting.” Frustration is mounting among those left without updates: “I literally ordered stuff six weeks ago and no communication at all. I’ve emailed them multiple times, and they haven’t responded.” The result is a fragmented and confusing customer experience, where outcomes appear to depend less on policy than on timing, channel and circumstance. Ultimately, whether customers receive their orders or recover their money will depend on the outcome of negotiations between receivers and Stax’s unpaid suppliers. A story that changed shape When we gave Stax the February 2025 cover, it was an honest reflection of what the brand appeared to be: a genuine Australian retail success story, built on community, inclusivity and the founders’ extraordinary work ethic. The warning signs, in retrospect, were not visible to Inside Retail – or, perhaps, to anyone. The store rollout looked confident. The pop-up queues had looked like proof. What the Stax story ultimately reveals is a specific kind of risk endemic to digitally-native brands. Online retail rewards speed, community and product. Physical retail rewards operational discipline, lease negotiation and margin management – an entirely different skill set. Don acknowledged as much: “Running a different store in every shopping centre, that is a very different business model to what we started with and one we have zero experience in.” That admission, offered in September 2025, proved to be both true and too late. The receivers are now conducting their assessment. Whether Stax’s brand, its IP, its online infrastructure or some combination of the three can be rescued by a buyer remains to be seen. What is certain is that the community the brand so carefully cultivated is now watching – frustrated, uncertain about their orders and waiting to find out if the brand they invested in will find a way forward. Inside Retail will continue to cover the Stax receivership as the situation develops.