After 52 years in the business, Emerton’s Retravision in Taree is still community focused, bandying together with local businesses to help out new home owners. In a cooperative effort to help young families buy their first house, the store is offering a $10,000 shopping spree to five new home owners.
Store manager Lawrence Montague explained to Current.com.au that when a local estate owner decided to sell five properties, he worked together with a local businessman, Brett Fitzsimmons, owner of a local mortgage broker, to put together a package to make owning your new home even more rewarding.
Five successful applicants can purchase the properties through an ANZ loan organised by Fitzsimmons, and can then deck out their new pad with consumer electronics and furniture worth up to $10,000 from the local Retravision. The offer has been made possible by the revised conditions of the First Home Owners Grant, which is currently worth $21,000, depending on circumstances.
Montague said that this scheme was just part of a wider effort to help the community.
“We are certainly committed to helping the community,” said Montague. “[Store owner] Noel Emerton has been in the business for 52 years and he’s very much part of the community.
“Things have been reasonable tough here, with the economic conditions, the drought and the deregulation of the dairy industry, but it’s important to give support to the community – if you give support you’ll get it back.”
When asked about the community focus of this, and many other Retravision stores, Montague pointed to one key motivator.
“With Retravision, the stores are still independently owned, and then part of a buying group. These are community-based stores. Some of the other [group owned] stores don’t get involved like they should,” he said.
Involvement in the community is a big part of the Retravision mission. Many country sporting leagues and public schools are financially supported by the local store, with benefactors believing that this altruism will be returned in store loyalty.
The big groups, like Harvey Norman and Bing Lee, sponsor the major sports competitions, but this is not about locals living a better life, it’s solely about brand recognition and exposure and quality through association: marketing terms that most salt of the earth Australians probably would not have heard of.