Harris Technology's sales surge on home office fitouts

Online retailer Harris Technology is emerging a winner in the race to fit out home offices and home schooling setups, revealing its sales in March more than doubled compared to the same time last year.

The company said in an ASX filing [pdf] that between its own e-commerce site and presences on Amazon Australia, Catch, Kogan and eBay, it generated $1.625 million in sales in March 2020, compared to $716,000 in March 2019.

“Total revenue for the March 2020 quarter is $3.4 million compared to the March 2019 quarter of $2.3 million,” the company said.

“Management attributes the increase in sales to strategically leveraging off the marketing and distribution power of the major e-commerce platforms such as Amazon Australia, [and] higher demand driven by the establishment of home offices and home schooling by consumers as a result of the current government requirements.”

Lockdowns of schools and workplaces have many more Australians at home than usual. 

Some companies, including SAP Australia, even gave staff one-off funds to improve their home office setups.

While much of the bricks-and-mortar retail sector has been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, those with e-commerce operations selling household goods, technology and home furniture items have bucked that trend, and many continue to see record numbers of visitors and purchases.

Harris Technology’s managing director Garrison Huang said the company “will continue to improve sales with all the major line platforms and also from our own website.”

Wesfarmers-owned Officeworks said on its website that it is seeing “an increase in demand for many products”, including all manner of technology items and home office furniture.

“Our online delivery service is currently experiencing high demand,” it said in an update yesterday.

“This is resulting in some longer than expected delivery times as indicated below.

“Our distribution team is working extended shifts to ensure that you receive your order when required or as close to that time as we can.”

The company has a table of delivery delays by state and territory as it tries to meet the volume of online orders.