We don’t plan on being on every street corner.
We don’t want to be like a Gloria Jean’s or a Coffee Club and have 300 units or 500 units across Australia. Our focus is just on the prime entertainment and dining precincts of Australia, and from our analysis we think that probably maxes out at about 80 stores.
We get something like 50 or 60 international franchise queries a month, which we don’t do anything with. We’ve parked them all and said, “Look, come back and see us when we’re ready, but at this stage we’re really focusing on just getting our Australian delivery right.”
In our specific space, we don’t have a lot of head-on competition. So we’re not like a burger bar or a Mexican concept that are all strapping for the same space out there.
The economic situation is such that we are now being offered quite significant incentives from landlords to come in and take space which had either been vacated by an old furniture retailer, or some of the other bigger box retailers like Borders that went down.
There’s been quite a lot of property and great opportunities thrown at us with fairly significant incentives over the last year. Like up to two years rent free, and also contributions to our fit out and so on.
The big figures I look at every week is the year-on-year growth for our existing stores.
We love opening new and successful stores, but what gives us greater satisfaction is that the ones that we do have on the ground, and that the franchise partners that have been with us through the years, that they’re still growing their bottom lines.
We’ve done a lot to build our online database, and to be able to connect with our customer base effectively and quickly. We’ve now got something like 25,000 Facebook fans and another 20,000 on our newsletter list, so we’ve been able to now start communicating personalised birthday offers to these guys, and all sorts of interesting promotions through the seasons to our customer base.
Melbourne’s been a great breeding ground for us.
The Melbourne customer is a very sophisticated customer and will smell out a fraud a mile away. So for us to cut our teeth here and to continue to stay relevant in Melbourne has meant that whenever we travel interstate, wherever it might be, it’s a hell of a lot easier.
When times do get tough, people might eat at home or seek out those more budget-oriented options, but they still like to treat themselves.
We didn’t want to create a concept that was just the domain of the CBD or posh areas, but we really wanted to create something that was accessible, and something that you could take your grandma to or take your girlfriend to or your kids as well.
Cara Waters is a former SmartCompany editor. Previously, Cara was a senior reporter for the Financial Times’ website and worked for The Sunday Times in London.
