By Claire Reilly
Following news that Kambrook has launched its brand in Russia, the small appliance manufacturer had a positive reception from Russian retailers already, according to Kambrook marketing manager, Adam Tacey.
Tacey will travel to Russia next week for a week of strategic planning meetings with the company’s Russian distribution partners, but says the Australian brand is well placed for international success.
“From all reports, and by the indicative sales that we’ve seen, Kambrook has been extremely well received by the retail groups that are stocking it,” he said. “I’m going to get a lot more information on that when we run through the Russian GfK data next week, but from all accounts, it’s found itself an opportunistic pocket within the market and it’s been extremely well received.”
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The brand began shipping products from China into Russia “towards the end of last year” and has already established a website to help promote the Kambrook name to new retailers and consumers who are less familiar with the Australian brand.
“We thought it was very important to get the website up and running as soon as possible to ensure that we had as much online support as was available,” said Tacey.
“The Kambrook brand is traditionally strong here in Australia because it is an Australian brand and its heritage has been here since it began. It’s linked to a number of really great inventions — when you think about timers and power boards and omelette makers and things like that, it is well known over here.
“Overseas it’s not such a prominent brand, but what has convinced our partner in Russia that there’s a great opportunity is the value we add as a business to the products we source. We go through the whole sourcing and launch program where we add so much value in terms of design, engineering, quality, reliability and testing in all areas.
“So customers or partners like our partner in Russia see the value there and they instantly recognise that it is a good quality product and they’re not going to have any problems with it.”
While it’s still early days for Kambrook in the overseas market, Tacey was positive about next week’s talks with the brand’s Russian distribution team.
And is there a chance that Australian retailers could start seeing some interesting products developed for the Russian market over here?
“Very possibly! We’ll work very closely with them on their product direction and strategy to see if there’s opportunity for that there, and vice versa.”