Winning Group CEO, John Winning has confirmed that all 22 Winning Appliances retail and commercial showrooms across the country will be open by May 11. The showrooms were all proactively closed on March 30 to protect the health and safety of its team and customers.
“When we reopen, we will continue to follow the measures we had established prior to closing, which are in line with the guidelines set by the federal government. These measures include hand sanitising, deep cleaning throughout our showrooms and social distancing,” Winning told Appliance Retailer.
He also anticipates training at the Winning Academy to resume onsite at Rosehill, NSW from next month after five weeks of online and face to face sessions.
“The Winning Academy has adapted its program to align with government guidelines and has continued to train the entire Winning Appliances retail business through face-to-face and online sessions, which has equated to 2,595 attendees, involved in 64 sessions and involving 22 supply partners. Since launching in November last year, the Winning Academy has conducted 1,300 training hours,” he said.
Winning also confirmed sales growth of more than 50% for the Appliances Online business for the month of April compared to April 2019 and was well prepared for high customer demand before COVID-19, having worked with Dexion Logistics since early 2019 to maximise warehouse storage capacity with their racking systems to scale and hold additional stock across Australia.
“We worked with Dexion Logistics on several of our distribution centres (DC), where we have expanded our warehouse space,” Winning told Appliance Retailer.
“We first expanded our warehouse space in Perth from 3,500 square metres to a new purpose-built 14,000 square metre warehouse in Kewdale. We later increased our Queensland DC from 4,000 square metres to an 18,000 square metre warehouse in Hemmant, Brisbane.
“We also took on an additional 11,000 square metre warehouse space in Sydney in August last year to complement our existing 24,000 square metres, which services our third-party logistics customers.
“The customised racking not only provides us with flexibility, but also allows us to continue to offer our customers an exceptional experience and deliver essential appliances to Australians during these challenging times.”