By James Wells
SYDNEY: The manager of the new Retravision Auburn store, Trevor Taylor, who has worked at the Home Mega Mall site in both Retravision and Hi Fi Corp, will also draw on his previous experience working with Adrian Conti’s Valtel group at Retravision Chatswood.
Taylor told Current.com.au that he received the keys to the premises last Friday and is now undertaking a new fitout to the store which is expected to be completed by the end of next week.
Taylor was one of the employees of Julie Rowland and Sandra Milgate, the former operators of Retravision Auburn prior to the store being placed into administration.
Taylor worked at Retravision Auburn for 18 months and prior to this worked at Retravision Chatswood for Adrian Conti, but left the business a year before it entered receivership. Taylor joined the electrical retailing industry after 17 years in the car trade by working his way through Dick Smith Powerhouse.
Taylor then joined Hi Fi Corporation as group sales manager at the Home Mega Mall site, which was eventually wound up by Strathfield Group. Taylor subsequently helped Rowland and Milgate — who were running Retravision Bankstown at the time — secure the Auburn site.
Taylor told Current.com.au that it will be the new approach to business that will be the difference for the new Retravision Auburn.
“We have always had a lot of business in this store by focusing on customer service. While the sticker price is higher at other retailers like Clive Peeters, we will compete by providing a little bit more customer service than The Good Guys next door,” Taylor said.
“A lot of the time you don’t need to get down and dirty to get business from a customer. A lot of customers are tired of not getting the service that they want. We will have one or two younger salespeople on our team, but there will be seven staff from the old store that were previously here with a diverse mix of cultures to represent our local demographics.
“This is a new adventure and we are going to market with a fresh approach that has been delivered by Retravision Southern.”
Modelled on the Sunshine Retravision superstore concept in Melbourne, the Auburn store will be adapted for the Sydney market and will retain most of the superstore elements that previously existed as well as some improvements.
“Retravision built Auburn as a showpiece, so we are pretty lucky. We will change the design and style of the store by running AV down the left hand side wall, which was already reinforced back in the Hi-Fi Corp days. We will also be getting into the cooking packs market to address our customer’s needs as we were in that market before,” Taylor said.