Victoria will remain the focus for additional e&s branded bricks and mortar stores ahead of any national retail expansion under the new JB Hi-Fi ownership.
Speaking at the e&s conference titled ‘The Next Chapter’ in Melbourne this week, e&s managing director Rob Sinclair and JB Hi-Fi COO Nick Wells participated in a panel discussion discussing the next steps following the acquisition of the previously privately-owned business by the publicly-listed company last year.
Wells commented on the recent strong performance from the Western Australia and Queensland markets in particular for the JB Hi-Fi Group, but Sinclair was quick to hose down a rapid retail expansion into additional states outside of Victoria.
“When you look at plans for the business, we have some consolidating to do in Victoria and we will continue to do that and get ourselves prepared – and then growth is definitely an objective,” Sinclair said.
Wells shared learnings from the JB Hi-Fi business and explained why the focus in the short term will remain within the state of Victoria.
“e&s do a great job in Victoria, but going interstate is a different story. We are excited about interstate expansion but at the moment we have work to do in Victoria to set us up for that future growth,” Wells said.
“We think there are new store opportunities in Victoria and we have a store in Epping opening in June that I visited recently that is looking great. We also have an opportunity in the Mornington Peninsula and we know we have other opportunities where there are gaps. So we will continue to open stores in Victoria, but expanding outside of your home state – and we have learnt this lesson – you need the systems and you need the processes and the tools to set you up for success,” Wells said.
Sinclair reflected on the challenges with store expansion specifically in regional areas drawing on previous experience with the e&s store opened in Geelong in 2011.
“Ultimately the first semi-regional location we went to was Geelong and you do need a critical mass in a town to ensure you have the ability to create the right sized retail business and be profitable so it is a slower burn and it is harder. There are obvious locations once the population is north of 100,000 as then you have an area or a region that you can service quite well,” Sinclair said.
“Let’s say we want to go to a location like Bendigo – it is two hours from Melbourne and from my point of view when a consumer comes to e&s, they want to see a full-blown e&s. The Geelong store is a 2500 square metre store and pays absolute respect to the consumer because the consumer wants range and they can see all of our brand partners and say to themselves that they don’t need to go anywhere else. So capturing consumers and ensuring they get everything they want in the one shop is important – under servicing a location with a small store is a big risk,” Sinclair said.
Read Appliance Retailer’s exclusive interview with Rob Sinclair on his reflections for 2024 and plans for 2025.
Click here to view the photo gallery from the e&s conference.