April 2026
ertonline.co.uk
“Then we’ll have a look at what business looks like after that. We’re not currently looking at any other regions of the UK; our focus now is making sure we can service the five million people in the West Midlands – if you have a look at our New Zealand and Irish businesses, both of those markets have about five million people, and the West Midlands has that. “We’re comfortable and confident that we can do good numbers and we want to make sure our supply partners have good sales, and then we’ll have a look at, strategically, what the next chapter looks like after that.” Mr Roach’s gut feel is that the business will head north next.
“The big thing for us now is we have the formula, we had the relationship with contractors,” Mr Roach said. The Harvey Norman UK team is growing and Mr Roach said that the retailer should be able to roll stores out a little quicker. “I think store three will come in March 2027,” he said, “and then ideally, the gap to the fourth one will be close. We’ll try and get a couple done in the first half of 2027, ideally, and the fifth store, in 2028, will take care of the West Midlands.
At the opening of the Merry Hill Shopping
Centre store, Harvey Norman chairman Gerry Harvey, said the retailer could have up to 100 stores in Great Britain. Mr Roach said: “We’ve got 196 stores in Australia for 26 million people; there are 65
million people in Great Britain, but it’s also very densely populated here, as opposed to Australia. “I think in the short term, we’ll keep opening one or two stores a year for a period of time; our biggest competitors have over 100 stores and we have good aspirations.”
Online business
Mr Roach said that the business is very happy with its web traffic. “We’re getting double-digit growth from a visitor perspective month-on-month, and we get good sales growth through the web as well,” Mr Roach said. “But what we’re really buoyed about is where these people live that are shopping with us online. “More than 50 per cent of the customers
that are purchasing through our website now are within a 15-20-minute drive of our Merry Hill store. Being an omnichannel retailer, we want people to shop with us where they’re most comfortable, but we want them to know that we will have an appliance or a sofa or a bed that suits them better if they’ve been into one of our locations.
“When we see the mix of our online transactions and where those people live, we’re very confident they’ve probably been in-store before making their purchase.” Mr Roach highlighted Smeg’s yellow Portofino own, which is priced at £3,399. “I can’t imagine anybody buying a yellow oven without seeing it in real life,” Mr Roach
said. “We’ve got one of those on display at Merry Hill, so we know that they’ve been in our store, and we would expect a boost in our online business by having this location open in Sutton Coldfield.”
After sales service
While Harvey Norman spends a lot of time training its sales team, one thing that it hasn’t really spoken about is its after sales service, which includes delivery and installation. “Over the last 12 months, I’ve been working with TNS, and our aftersales support is ready to go,” Mr Roach said. “We can go everywhere in the West Midlands at least once a week and install appliances professionally, including Leicester, which is obviously in the East Midlands, and even all the way down to Rugby.”
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