“More than a typical marketplace”: Why retail veteran Bill Gremos launched Australia’s first online homewares supercentre

A veteran of the Australian retail industry is taking on the pure-play e-commerce retailers by drawing on the “collective strength” of established furniture and homewares brands to create an online shopping destination that he says is “much more than the typical online marketplace”.

HomeMakerCentral is a first-of-its-kind digital home living supercentre and was founded by retail stalwart Bill Gremos, who started his career at a market stall in Sydney’s Paddy’s Markets in the mid-1980s before going on to establish the highly successful DecoRug chain in 1993, with 30 stores now located across Australia.

It comes as homewares and appliances nabbed the top spot on the online shopping lists of Australian consumers. According to National Australia Bank’s latest Online Retail Sales Index from October 2022, homewares and appliances topped the list for Australians online spending making up 22% of total sales, followed by department stores at 16.8% and then grocery and liquor at 15.9%.

Ashley Furniture, Barbeques Galore, Beds n Dreams, DecoRug, Johnny’s Furniture, Lavita Outdoor, Linen House, Shack, What’s Cooking and Najaf are the 10 well-known and established retailers already featured exclusively on HomeMakerCentral. However, the list is growing, with double expected to have signed up by the end of next month.

Speaking to SmartCompany, Gremos says the motivation to create HomeMakerCentral.com.au as a digital twin of a traditional home living super centre came from his years of experience in the retail sector.

“I saw the need for large homewares retailers to have a better online presence and for customers to have a one-stop-shop online to be able to decorate their homes,” he says.

“So, seeing a real need for a lot of retailers to come together in the one online retail space and give customers the opportunity and ability to shop around a bit. HomeMakerCentral is much, much more than the typical online marketplace.

“Retailers traditionally have to scramble and fight for online attention and usually in isolation. By putting the big players and trusted brand retailers together in one online platform the collective strength is a much better digital shopping experience.

“For customers, not only does it give them an abundance of choice but it enhances their browser experience. The functionality and processes are integrated — for example, they only have to check out and pay once despite buying from different stores.

“The coming together of individual stores brings the depth and breadth of a marketplace — which allows them to compete against online-only or pure-play e-commerce vendors.”

Gremos says since soft launching the site in November, retailers on HomeMakerCentral are already seeing an average order value of $600 per transaction, which is around 25% more than what other marketplaces are reporting. 

“Despite the rising cost of living, we can see that Australians want to spend on furnishing their homes and the convenience of having some of their favourite retailers together in one online place,” he said.

Gremos says HomeMakerCentral also offers shoppers rewards points for purchases and the ability to curate specific design boards as they plan the look of their home.

“We find homewares customers are not just shopping for specific items, often they’re browsing and looking for inspiration,” he said.

“People can explore the design boards that have been professionally curated by an interior designer or create their own shoppable design boards for their home and see how items from different retailers will look together in their space.”