EB Games’ digital success grounded in bricks and mortar

IT’S precisely the type of retailer you’d expect to struggle amid the online shopping revolution, but this Queensland chain is thriving in its “bricks and mortar” format.

EB GAMES may be deeply entrenched in the digital world, but that has not stopped the Queensland retailer from rapidly expanding its bricks and mortar footprint across the country.

Celebrating 20 years in business this year, the games retailer has grown to 372 stores across Australia as well as 41 stores in New Zealand.

Another brand under the company’s umbrella is the relatively new Zing Pop Culture, which has rapidly expanded to encompass 52 stores since it was launched in 2014.

EB Games was recently crowned 2017 Omni-Channel Retailer of the Year at the Australian Retail Awards.

In the ever-increasing omni-channel retail landscape, EB Games loyalty and digital marketing manager Jane Buckle said the company fully recognised that customers wanted ease of transactions.

Dan Cheung, store manager at EB Games, Albert St Brisbane. EB Games has been named one of the country’s top retailers. Picture: Mark Cranitch

“In this day and age, customers expect their online and in-store experience to be one-in-the same and easy to use,” she said.

“We continue to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in technology to meet that demand – everything we sell online can be collected in-store within 15 minutes.

“Likewise, even the most hard-to-find product only available in a regional Western Australian store can be bought by a Brisbane customer.”

The company has more than 3500 employees nationwide. “We are passionate about internal development and have a promote-within culture,” Ms Buckle said.

“Eighty seven per cent of new roles are filled by internal promotion and we turn over less than 10 per cent of our full-time retail workforce annually.

“Stories of amazing progression are common all across EB Games, for example our senior director started as an assistant store manager at EB Carindale back in 2000.”

The rest of the year’s plans includes spending millions of dollars on refits and more new stores, including a $500,000 renovation of their flagship, three-level store in Melbourne, the biggest video game store in the southern hemisphere.