[LINK] Kogan on Online Retail....

[Alex (Maxious) Sadleir]

On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 6:11 PM, Scott Howard <scott at doc.net.au> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 11:10 PM, Kimberley Heitman <kheitman at kheitman.com>wrote:
>
>> As I recall the tale, the first Harvey Norman website had online purchasing
>> facilities and was quickly fleeced by unscrupulous purchasers (using false
>> credit cards coupled with the site permitting insecure deliveries). It
>> closed in a huff and stayed there.
>>
>
> There used to be 2 different Harvey Norman websites -
> www.harveynorman.com.au and www.harvey-norman.com.au
>
> The first of these was owned by Harvey Norman corporate (ie, the
> franchiser).  The second was owned by one specific Harvey Norman store (ie,
> a franchisee)
>
> >From memory it was the second of these which started doing online selling
> many years ago.  It didn't last long, and the rumor at the time was that
> they were shutdown by corporate as their franchisee license didn't allow
> them to operate online - and several of the other franchisee's complained
> about them doing so.
>
> As far as I'm aware, the official website (harveynorman.com.au) has never
> done any form of online selling, with the exception of their Fujitsu
> partnership for photos.


"Mr Harvey said the launch of his own online store in the 1990s had
been another example of bad timing. 'When I opened my site, I was
doing $30,000 a week turnover, so I closed it and I opened it up again
… I got the same turnover so I closed it again. Now I am opening
another one as we speak because in this business it is as much about
timing as anything else.''"
http://www.theage.com.au/business/gerry-harvey-beats-a-retreat-20110106-19hkq.html

Does he really expect his new site to be any more popular with the
online shopping crowd after he called them un-australian?