Briscoe’s Success Formula: CEO Rod Duke Shares Insights on Navigating Retail Challenges

• Rod Duke, the CEO of Briscoe Group, attributes the company’s success to focusing on high-quality products and maintaining strong inventory management, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when they anticipated and capitalized on a spike in demand by stocking up early.
• Despite a challenging economic environment, where competitors like The Warehouse and Cam D Brands reported significant losses, Briscoe Group remained profitable, growing sales slightly in the year to January and maintaining much of the margin gains achieved in recent years.
• Briscoe Group’s strategy involves not competing on low prices for low-quality goods but rather offering well-known brands at competitive prices, which has resonated well with customers, contributing to their continued success.
• The company is making significant investments in automation and efficiency, with a $100 million new automated facility, aiming to improve profitability further by reducing costs and enhancing customer service.
• Rod Duke emphasizes the importance of being market leaders in New Zealand, a strategy that has paid off for both Briscoe and Rebel Sport, their sporting goods and housewares brands, allowing them to dominate in their respective markets despite economic pressures.

Briscoes or Briscoes Homeware is a retail store selling a variety of homeware at sometimes heavily discounted prices. It is comparable in size to a medium size discount department store. Many brands are exclusively imported by Briscoes, allowing for such low prices.

Briscoes Homeware is the flagship brand of the Group and generates most of the company’s revenue. Currently there are 45 stores trading throughout New Zealand. The brand’s slogan is “You’ll never buy better”, referring to Briscoes Homeware’s ‘Price Promise’ that states the store will match and beat by 10% any price found on a stocked item at another retailer.

Tammy Wells, a farmer and former radio journalist from Canterbury, has fronted Briscoes’ television advertising campaigns since 1989. She is known to New Zealanders as “The Briscoes Lady”

Rebel Sport is the largest sport equipment and apparel chain in New Zealand, with 38 stores currently trading. It was born out of a franchise agreement between Briscoe Group and Rebel Sport Australia in 1995.

Main image: Rod Duke, the CEO of Briscoe Group. Photo: youtube/ Markets with Madison & Carson Buck