In this special guest post, Narta chief operation officer Michael Jackson outlines the progress of Retravision since coming under the Narta banner on 1 April 2013.
On 1 April 2013, we took the Retravision name and in doing this we established a division of Retravision under Narta and we provided selected stores with a licensing agreement to continue to trade under the brand.
There continues to be clear potential for Retravision in the marketplace, with over 55 years of history and high consumer awareness.
We have conducted a lot of research and despite the bad press the business has received, the perception is worse within the industry than with consumers. It is clear that consumers still have a lot of faith in the brand and regard it as representing Australian small local businesses with a strong service orientation.
It is true that the business has declined from 400 stores to less than 30 stores, but Narta felt that there was merit in obtaining the brand. It was worthwhile from our perspective not only as a defensive opportunity, as it could appear as a competitor down the track, but particularly with the strength of the brand in Western Australia.
Retravision continues to represent several hundred million dollars in turnover from the stores which are currently trading with Narta. There are 18 members representing 24 shopfronts in Western Australia; three shopfronts from the Webbers group in Queensland in Mackay, Rockhampton and Gladstone; two shopfronts in South Australia in Clare and Kadina; and a single store in the Northern Territory at Murray Oakley.
These stores all have strong balance sheets, have good relationships with suppliers and represent sufficient volume which meets the criteria for entering the Narta group.
What we found was there was so much emotion and passion about the Retravision brand that many of them were determined to remain as a Retravision branded store. Peter Kambouris saw the opportunity with his business (Kambo’s) to become a franchisor and we have supported him 100 per cent in that and what he is doing in his business.
At the end of the day, the Retravision people we have within Narta are good retailers and it was not worth losing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business from excellent operators, some of which have been with Retravision for up to 50 years. Retravision is clearly a passion for them — it is a brand they want to have forever.
It was based on this that the Narta board saw the opportunity to acquire the Retravision brand and provide the business with a survival plan and a new home rather than a path to demise.
There have been many challenges over the past month. Up until 1 April 2013, we had no involvement in the sales figures and purchasing data of the business, and we had little understanding of the impact to the business since the Retravision Southern administration in May 2012.
It has been tough for the Retravision stores to move from centralised to individual billing accounts and reading the constant bad press telling everyone that they were in trouble. We know there has been some damage done, but there is enough strength within the brand for it to continue to trade.
We have appointed Glen Mortimer, who is the Retravision manager based in Western Australia, to help put the systems and processes in place, and also to introduce the Narta culture.
Glen will be the general on the ground working with the stores and day-to-day he will work with Bob Stanley in the Narta office who has over 10 years of experience with the group.
We would like to thank Paul Holt who has been responsible for an ethical wind down of the business and also for his passion in finding a solution for all members within the group.
One of the exciting things that we have introduced in just the first month has been a whole new point-of-sale system that is state of the art, providing live sales data and stock on hand information.
The next phase of the implementation will be linking to electronic data interchange (EDI) ordering to provide the stock management and control that is required to keep the business running efficiently.
This will provide more uniformity and consistency with the way the Retravision stores go to market and will be complemented by a new marketing campaign that we are introducing to the stores this week. This marketing campaign will represent a full 12-month plan across TV, radio and print.
This is a million dollar investment from Narta in the future of the Retravision business and we have had fantastic support from suppliers and the stores themselves.
If Retravision can redefine their systems and processes and create new disciplines, combined with the obvious passion they have in their own business, we believe this brand will become a valuable division within Narta.
According to a company statement, Narta "was established in 1965 and is the largest independent electrical buying group in Australia…with combined buying power of more than $3 billion".
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