By James Wells
MELBOURNE: Ted’s Cameras managing director, Richard Roberston claims he has experienced record sales over the last two months and is using a simple strategy to combat the downturn in consumer spending.
Robertson told Current the digital imaging business with 22 stores nationally including 11 in Victoria has experienced several back to back weeks with record sales.
“It has been very brisk up to now – we have had record weeks over the last seven or eight weeks – and every week is getting stronger.”
Ted’s Cameras, who joined the Narta group in October this year owns 15 per cent of the Australian SLR market and 6 per cent of the digital compact market.
Robertson said he expects a slowdown to occur around February next year as the post Christmas and post January sales period.
“People who have money buy brands and products they can trust. Over the last 40 years, consumers recognize us as someone they can trust.
“The last three recessions didn’t affect us that much – volumes were down a bit, but it is a totally different recession as most have come along slowly and business has gone down gradually.
“There are enough people around with money who want to buy an SLR, but the question is will the customer spend $300 and just buy less or will they put off the purchase to save the 30 per cent extra or will they just say it is all a bit too hard.
“The key thing is keeping people employed through the rough times as that will be the real collateral damage. All of the others have never come this quickly and people have not seen the value losses in real estate or the sharemarket on the back of a collapsing dollar.