Global Retail Brands Australia (GRBA) is making an aggressive push into the home furnishings market with the launch of a new brand, House – Bed & Bath. The brand builds on GRBA’s House cooking, dining and entertaining stores with the introduction of bed linen, bath and living ranges. A new concept store opens at Doncaster Westfield shopping centre today, the first of two to open in Victoria this month, with more than 50 additional sites selected as part of a national roll-out.&
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“I anticipate that we will have 35 [House – Bed & Bath stores] open between July to November,” Global Retail Brands Australia founder and executive chairman, Steven Lew, told Inside Retail.
The new store network will create 500 jobs, full-time and part-time, within the business.
The House – Bed & Bath brand will offer bedding essentials including bedlinen, sheeting, quilts and pillows, bathroom items such as scales, robes and towels, as well as lifestyle, gifting and decor pieces.
Lew believes the brand is well-positioned to compete in these categories on a national scale.
“We’ve always said that ‘house is where the heart is’. We’re all finding more comfort, and spending more time, in our homes. People are becoming more house proud,” he said.
And with international borders expected to remain closed for another 12 months in Australia, GRBA is primed to take advantage of this opportunity.
“We are seeing incredible strength in the homewares and lifestyle sectors. This provides the environment to introduce quality and price pointed accessibility of our brands to new markets across Australia,” Lew said.
The group has taken a very tactile approach to the in-store experience and staff will be “exceptionally well trained” to provide a valuable customer experience, according to Lew.
“We will be offering all types of services, [including] design services in some stores, where [customers] can book an appointment with a style consultant and they can help create the perfect room in [their] house.”
Influential collaborations will also be a key focus for the brand, with the launch of a curated Home range with media personality Deborah Hutton and a collaboration with style aficionado and TV personality Neale Whitaker to launch in July.
The brand will also have an online presence, sitting within the House website.
“We have 1.5 million members in House and we want to be able to engage and activate those VIPs across this new business as we have with the House business,” Lew said.
Bigger and better
GRBA currently has over 170 stores nationwide under the House and Robins Kitchen brands, and since the acquisition of NSW linen chain MyHouse last year, GRBA has focused on growing its presence in the thriving homewares market.
GRBA will also open 20 new House stores in FY22, with half serving as standalone House stores and the other half being Homemaker stores, which will combine the two brands.
“We’re opening another 10 House Homemaker stores which will carry both brands [House and House – Bed & Bath] side by side so it will cover every room in the house,” Lew said.
The company is planning to upsize House stores where possible and, on Friday, opens the first of these larger stores at House in Westfield Knox, which will welcome the second House – Bed & Bath store later this month.
“We’re definitely looking for larger footprints. The average size of a House store is 150-160 metres, we’re looking at [growing that to] about 200.”
For the recently acquired MyHouse business, GRBA is planning to expand the business beyond NSW, with stores in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.
“We have [selected] around 35 new locations and quite a lot of those will open in the second half of this year as well.”
GRBA’s portfolio also includes Pet House and Baccarat. With all these new additions, GRBA’s store count is expected to be in excess of 250 in FY22.