Harvey Norman UK recently opened its second store in the West Midlands, in Sutton Coldfield, 14 months after it opened in Merry Hill Shopping Centre in Dudley. Simon King reports.
Harvey Norman is on target to have five UK mainland stores open by mid-2028, according to Lachlan Roach, managing director of Harvey Norman UK.
Mr Roach, who has worked for Harvey Norman for 24 years, told ERT that the business had been looking for a site in Sutton Coldfield for the last four years.
Once the site had been secured, Mr Roach said the retailer received a lot of positive comments from the people of Sutton Coalfield.
“People really wanted to see what we’re all about, so we hit the accelerator,” Mr Roach said. “We took over three weeks off the standard build time, making Sutton Coldfield the fastest build Harvey Norman has ever done over multiple floors, across its 318 stores, several of which are double-storey.
“Our contractors, Gloucestershire-based Barnwoods, put in some really big shifts. They got in early, went home late, did seven days a week, and our teams did the same.”
To create the 52,000sq ft Sutton Coldfield store, Mr Roach has taken elements from both Australia and Croatia.
“Our flagship store in Australia, Auburn, consists of two storeys, and it has a beautiful atrium, not dissimilar to the one in Sutton Coldfield, also it’s also not dissimilar to the skylight in one of our brand-new stores in Croatia,” Mr Roach said.
Working with suppliers
For the Sutton Coldfield store, just like it did with the Merry Hill store, Harvey Norman worked with its supplier partners to make integrated appliances look cool.
“We’ve got seven or eight manufacturers that are presenting leading designs so customers can get a better idea as to what it’s going to look like in their home, and also it creates a bit more atmosphere in a traditionally boring category, like integrated fridges,” Mr Roach said.
“If you want a £19 kettle, I’ve got them; if you want one of the cool Smeg Porsche kettles for £299, I’ve got those as well. If you want a front-load washer for £199 great, I’ve got a Candy machine up there that’ll do it, or if you want the latest from Miele for £2,000, I’ve got that as well.”
New stores
Mr Roach said that the retailer is involved in deals that are getting closer to becoming a reality on a couple more sites.
“It’s widely documented that we think five is a good number in the West Midlands, and there’s a couple of markets in the West Midlands, one in particular, that we really want to get to, but we’d love to be there,” Mr Roach said.
“Then we’ll have a look at what business looks like after that. We’re not currently looking at any other regions of the UK; our focus now is making sure we can service the five million people in the West Midlands – if you have a look at our New Zealand and Irish businesses, both of those markets have about five million people, and the West Midlands has that.
“We’re comfortable and confident that we can do good numbers and we want to make sure our supply partners have good sales, and then we’ll have a look at, strategically, what the next chapter looks like after that.”
Mr Roach’s gut feel is that the business will head north next.
“The big thing for us now is we have the formula, we had the relationship with contractors,” Mr Roach said.
The Harvey Norman UK team is growing and Mr Roach said that the retailer should be able to roll stores out a little quicker.
“I think store three will come in March 2027,” he said, “and then ideally, the gap to the fourth one will be close. We’ll try and get a couple done in the first half of 2027, ideally, and the fifth store, in 2028, will take care of the West Midlands.
At the opening of the Merry Hill Shopping Centre store, Harvey Norman chairman Gerry Harvey, said the retailer could have up to 100 stores in Great Britain.
Mr Roach said: “We’ve got 196 stores in Australia for 26 million people; there are 65 million people in Great Britain, but it’s also very densely populated here, as opposed to Australia.
“I think in the short term, we’ll keep opening one or two stores a year for a period of time; our biggest competitors have over 100 stores and we have good aspirations.”
Online business
Mr Roach said that the business is very happy with its web traffic.
“We’re getting double-digit growth from a visitor perspective month-on-month, and we get good sales growth through the web as well,” Mr Roach said. “But what we’re really buoyed about is where these people live that are shopping with us online. 
“More than 50 per cent of the customers that are purchasing through our website now are within a 15-20-minute drive of our Merry Hill store. Being an omnichannel retailer, we want people to shop with us where they’re most comfortable, but we want them to know that we will have an appliance or a sofa or a bed that suits them better if they’ve been into one of our locations.
“When we see the mix of our online transactions and where those people live, we’re very confident they’ve probably been in-store before making their purchase.”
Mr Roach highlighted Smeg’s yellow Portofino own, which is priced at £3,399.
“I can’t imagine anybody buying a yellow oven without seeing it in real life,” Mr Roach said. “We’ve got one of those on display at Merry Hill, so we know that they’ve been in our store, and we would expect a boost in our online business by having this location open in Sutton Coldfield.”
After sales service
While Harvey Norman spends a lot of time training its sales team, one thing that it hasn’t really spoken about is its after sales service, which includes delivery and installation.
“Over the last 12 months, I’ve been working with TNS, and our aftersales support is ready to go,” Mr Roach said.
“We can go everywhere in the West Midlands at least once a week and install appliances professionally, including Leicester, which is obviously in the East Midlands, and even all the way down to Rugby.”
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