Harvey Norman is expanding into the United Kingdom as Gerry Harvey takes the next step towards a long-held ambition to make the retail chain bigger overseas than in Australia.

A 5295-square-metre mega store in England’s West Midlands was opened this week that will sell similar products to Harvey Norman’s Australian business, including TVs and large appliances.

Harvey has said the initial plan is to open three stores in the area, with the strategy aimed at enticing Brits back into bricks-and-mortar stores to buy things like fridges, rather than online.

“The evidence we have globally is that online business is nowhere near as big as people talk about,” Harvey told Appliance Retailer about the expansion.

Retail Doctor Group chief Brian Walker said Harvey Norman will look to replicate the same things that it succeeds with in Australia.

That includes a “sales-focused execution” and attention to the minutiae of the brands they stock.

Australian brand’s torrid history in UK

More broadly, Harvey Norman’s move into the UK is part of a long-held ambition from Harvey to see their overseas businesses eclipse the local one, with 300 stores now open internationally.

That includes locations in Northern Ireland, Slovenia, Croatia, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand, with the company pursuing a mix of company-owned and franchised locations.

The business booked $2.6 billion in revenue from its overseas businesses last financial year, which is up 28 per cent over the past five years and is now almost a third of overall sales.

But moving into the UK could prove to be challenging for Harvey Norman; other Australian retailers such as Bunnings have tried to expand into that market and failed.

Despite being a dominant brand in Australia, Bunnings torched more than $1 billion trying to make it big in the UK under Homebase, an expansion that was eventually scrapped.

The expansion was called the “most disastrous” in UK retail history by analysts, who said they couldn’t think of an acquisition that racked up so many losses so quickly.

Harvey Norman hopes to avoid Bunnings’ fate

Harvey Norman hopes to avoid the same fate, but the broader economic environment won’t be easy to navigate either.

British consumers are keeping a tight hold on their purse strings amid a similar cost-of-living crisis as Australians suffered.

The company’s UK managing director Lachlan Roach said the business is prepared though, having been considering opening in West Midlands for some time.

“The opportunity we had to open in a key national destination like Merry Hill was not one to miss, and it makes for the perfect home for our flagship location,” he said.

“We’re a customer-centric brand and Merry Hill has a vibrant community, so we are thrilled to bring both our extensive range of lifestyle, technology, and entertainment products and the exceptional service that Harvey Norman is renowned for worldwide.”

Harvey Norman is also hoping express checkouts help them stand out from the competition. It has done a deal with Shopify in the UK to speed up the consumer experience in their stores.

Harvey Norman is opting to spread its investments in its expansion to mitigate against the risk of one going poorly, with more than a dozen store openings planned this year.

Many of those will be in Malaysia and Singapore, where Harvey Norman has enjoyed strong growth since Covid-19, with sales now eclipsing $700 million a year and profits of $47 million.

But while Harvey has said UK retailers “got into trouble” with soaring costs, mainly from high rents, there are signs his own international network is also suffering from tighter margins.

Aggregated before-tax profits from Harvey Norman’s overseas stores have sunk over the past two years, down from $232 million in 2022 to $158 million in 2024, including licence fees.