Harvey Norman records 30 per cent sales jump in three months

Harvey Norman has experienced a COVID-19 sales boom with an “unprecedented” sales boost in the past few months despite lockdown.

Harvey Norman has seen its total sales increase by 30 per cent in the past 10 weeks, which boss Gerry Harvey said is “mind-boggling” and “unprecedented”.

The executive chairman of Harvey Norman Holdings told news.com.au that he has “never seen this in my lifetime and probably never will again”.

For the period from July 1 to September 17 this year, the retailer saw a boost in total sales across its wholly owned company-operated stores in Australia, New Zealand, Slovenia, Croatia, Ireland and Northern Ireland compared to the same period last year.

The Australian franchises led the increase with a 34 per cent boost in sales in the past three months compared to the same time in 2019, and New Zealand franchises boosted sales by 18 per cent. Slovenia and Croatia combined sales were up by 27 per cent. Ireland sales were up almost 62 per cent and Northern Ireland up around 23 per cent.

Sales in Singapore were weak, however, dropping almost 4 per cent, while Malaysia increased sales by only 7 per cent.

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Gerry Harvey said he has never seen sales like this before. Picture: Luke Marsden

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Mr Harvey who co-founded the retailer with Ian Norman in 1982 told news.com.au that the sales growth was seen across all sectors, which started with computers and fridges when COVID-19 first hit, then to washing machines and then “it went right across everything … it just continued on”.

“I’ve never seen this before. It’s unprecedented. I’ve never seen this before in my time. I won’t live to see it again. It’s mind-boggling. It’s a huge increase,” he said.

“More people are spending money on their home, we know that, they’re cooking more at home, they’re confined to the home a lot more and they’re doing up the house. The money people were spending elsewhere is now being spent on the home.”

Despite lockdowns in Auckland and Melbourne, the retailer’s sales still weren’t impacted.

“If those things didn’t happen, we would be better off, but even with those hiccups we are still doing well,” he said. “Sales are going through the roof still.”

He said it was impossible to predict if the sales boost would continue leading up to Christmas or into next year. “We’ve got to look at it month by month,” he said. “No one knows.”

In August, 18 Harvey Norman and Domayne franchisee stores in greater Melbourne were closed as a direct result of the stage 4 restrictions mandated by the Victorian State Government, which forced the stores to move to Click & Collect and contactless deliveries.

The sales turnover of affected franchisees in greater Melbourne were “adversely affected by these mandated closures”. Restrictions are expected to ease in Melbourne from October 26.