UPDATE: Leading Appliances has been in contact to say that the website launched over the Easter weekend. Although Current.com.au was checking during this period, it only first appeared to us on Tuesday 2 April 2012.

Opinion by Claire Reilly

One day after its official launch as a “real entity” in the Australian electrical retailing landscape, Leading Appliances has only just launched its online brand presence, with the retailer’s website going live this afternoon.

As of yesterday, 1 April 2013, the Retravision brand was officially acquired by the Narta buying group and the remaining Retravision stores on the East Coast were moved over to the Leading Edge group to become Leading Appliances stores.

With more than 60 members coming over into the Leading Appliances stable, there will be a significant bricks and mortar presence for the group. However, as any successful retailer would attest, an online presence is essential to building a successful retail business.

As reported on Current.com.au last week, Google searches for Leading Appliances have hitherto only produced news stories about the brand, rather than official pages from the retailer itself. The Leading Edge Group purchased and registered the leadingappliances.com.au domain. But until this afternoon, no website was visible to browsers.

Click here to sign up for our FREE daily newsletter
Follow Current.com.au on Twitter

Furthermore, the brand has no official accounts on Twitter or Facebook — arguably the second and third most important websites for a new business looking to build consumer awareness in the retail landscape.

In the week since Current.com.au first published an opinion piece stating the necessity of website, two social media accounts bearing the Leading Appliances name have popped up online, both seemingly set up as ‘fan pages’.

With one online follower, the @LeadingApplianc twitter account bills itself as “an unofficial page for the new Leading Appliances group. Helping them build some sort of internet, Facebook and Twitter presence”. The account has published three tweets since 27 March.

Leading Appliances only has an unofficial Twitter page.

While there are two Facebook accounts for Leading Appliances stores in Ayr and Bowen (both in Queensland), the “Leading Appliances” page on Facebook describes itself as “a fan page for the new Leading Appliances buying group”.

The unknown creator writes in the page’s ‘About’ section, “I am hoping that everything goes well for them. Hopefully some of the ideas and input I provide here will help them. (Perhaps they might also offer me a job!)”.

In addition, the first post from the account reads: “Leading Appliances – the new buying group kicks off April 1. This is not an April Fools joke”.

A post from the Leading Appliances 'fan' account.

The “60-plus” former Retravision members that have joined Leading Appliances will no doubt be doing everything they can to ensure a smooth transition after a tumultuous year in the Retravision stable. However, the delay in putting forward a unified online front could hamper Leading Appliances’ attempts to gain a foothold in the industry.

Furthermore, the fact that rogue social media accounts have started popping up means it will be even more difficult for the Leading Edge group to gain online legitimacy, as the group will have to fight to prove itself as the ‘real’ Leading Appliances.

The retailer is incredibly lucky that the fake accounts created in the past week are positive in their coverage of their brand. Considering the chequered history of the Retravision/Leading Edge changeover, these spoof accounts could have been created with a very different goal. Either way, they represent an online message that cannot be controlled or monitored.

In other news, the Retravision.com.au domain has changed to a holding page for a “New Site Under Construction” — a switch that was made on the evening of 31 March 2012, the night before the official changeover of the Retravision brand.

Narta came to an agreement with West Australian retail group Dorsett Retail in November last year to continue using the Retravision name on a number of stores following the 1 April 2013 changeover date. Dorsett Retail currently owns the O'Connor, Bunbury, Busselton and Margaret River Retravision stores, and it is expected that these stores will continue operating under the Retravision shingle.

Presumably these stores will also gain access to the Retravision website.

A screen shot of the Retravision holding page (click image above for a larger view).