By James Wells
The chief executive officer of Betta Home Living, Graeme Cunningham, has predicted that his group could grow to 200 stores as several Retravision stores seek a new retail brand.
Cunningham said there will be new retailers joining the group, but there will be restrictions on the number of stores.
“We currently have 180 stores plus the stores that will come across from Retravision. I am not sure what the final number will be but we expect to have over 200 stores after the migration is completed,” Cunningham told Current.com.au.
“We are obviously working with Narta and doing our bit to find a home for stores. There are some people that we are talking to and we will continue to talk to these stores and there are stores we have not had contact with at this stage.
“There are limited opportunities for the Betta brand in that we can’t take everybody, and the opportunities to join may be limited in terms of timing and moving members across before 31 March 2013,” he said.
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Cunningham acknowledged that Western Australia remains one of the group’s weakest markets with 16 stores, but this may increase in coming months. A larger number of stores are expected to move from Retravision to Betta in the eastern states of Australia which began when Retravision Southern went into voluntary administration.
Cunningham sees the Betta brand and his ability to deliver strong marketing campaigns as an opportunity to recruit new stores to his group.
“The good news is that suppliers see this as a positive. The structured wind down of Retravision benefits the membership as there are a lot of people that are attached to this process with their homes and livelihoods, so we see this as a good option and it hopefully it will provide some certainty.
“We are well placed to support the Retravision members and we are looking to be able to offer the stores a very stable environment to build their businesses not only nationally but locally as well.”
Betta is also showing strength this week with the announcement of a new sponsorship deal with the Brisbane Heat T20 cricket team as well as the appointment of Matthew Hayden as cooking ambassador for the retailer.