By Craig Zammit

SYDNEY: With the recent flood of store closures, renovations and staff movements from Retravision New South Wales, the news of Port Stephens Retravision’s purchase of nearby Terrace Retravision represents a positive move to expand.

Port Stephens Retravision and now Terrace Retravision proprietor, Danny Unthank believes the purchase is a positive move.

“With all the bad news [of late], here’s a good set up where a store is trying to expand and move forward,” Unthank told current.com.au.

“The only way to go forward is to expand, as you can see with our competitors. And because [Terrace Retravision] is in close proximity to where I am, advertising and delivery costs, and everything along those lines, will be shared,” he said.

After almost 19 years with Port Stephens Retravision, Unthank, through Jayla Pty Ltd, purchased Terrace Retravision in Heatherbrae, making him the owner of two Retravision stores.

“At the present time [Terrace Retravision] is not at its best, but it will be a good shop once I get my hands on it and we change a few things.

“We are going to revamp the shop, revamp the brand and use a little bit more modern displays – just give it a good thorough cleansing. We are going to change the actual store itself,” he said.

The changes appear to have already begun, with Unthank ready to impart his knowledge and influence over the new store.

“We’ve already started implementing different decisions and different directions at the moment. Although we are not going to do it all in the first couple of weeks, we are going to try and get it done as quick as possible.”

The initial goal for Unthank and Terrace Retravision will be to have the store fully converted and revamped before 2007, a goal Unthank is positive about.

“In this market you can’t survive if you don’t make decisions quickly, so we want it to happen within the next three to six months,” he said.

Unthank reinforced that despite taking ownership of the store, he would keep all existing staff, stressing his stringent belief in the importance of maintaining a strong team.

“We are going to keep the staff, because I think they are the biggest asset the store has – good working staff. Without a doubt they are fantastic over there.

“We don’t want to change the staff, we want them to stay,” said Unthank.