Chris Newman won’t be spending many nights at home for the rest of 2014. He’s planning to spend his time with AvantiPlus dealer across the country. “My role is now Retail Development Manager,” Chris explained. “That means I’m trying to help grow the dealer network and give it strength. “AvantiPlus is the biggest network of stores around Australia, but that doesn’t mean that we can get lazy and complacent. We need to make sure we’ve got the right people on board. We also need to make sure that we can also grow the network as well, so we can use the buying group as a greater strength. “I also work in the operations side of things. So I am helping if a store needs a fit out. If we’ve got a new store I do everything from helping with the design, the supply of all the merchandise, on the sale of fixtures and fittings. I help source all that. I help organise the builders and sign writers. Basically the goal is to have it as a turn-key operation for the new owner. “With all the wealth of retail knowledge that we’ve got, we can also guide the store in the best direction forward so we can get them opening the store and hit the ground running. “We do everything from marketing support, we have a graphics team who are dedicated 100% to the AvantiPlus group, we do all the national campaigns focused specifically on bringing the customers to the door. “We go into the stores and help them merchandise the stores and give them a better way to retail. We give advice about the layout of the stores with planogram programs. “We’ve got 34 AvantiPlus stores currently in Australia with a few in the pipeline. In New Zealand I think it’s about 32. “They take most of our range. AvantiPlus traditionally have always been Avanti, Scott, Raleigh and ABD and now Haro. We’ve got a huge range of our own P&A as well. Malvern Star has always been out of that group, the same as it was prior to us taking over Pacific Brands.”
