Retail rebel
Words Cameron Officer Portraits Vinesh Kumaran
Rod Duke has been selling since he was a teenager. His schooldays in South Australia over by the age of 16, the burgeoning entrepreneur started working in a shoe shop, fascinated by the proposition of buying something and reselling it for more than was initially paid.
With years of retail experience under his belt, Duke made the move to New Zealand in 1988 as the new managing director of Briscoes. His mandate was to return the struggling company to profit and prepare it for sale. By 1990 however, it was Duke himself who had purchased the company, expanded the operation, and would soon add Rebel Sport to the portfolio.
In 2001 Briscoe Group was listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, and twenty-three years later, Duke remains the majority shareholder and managing director. With 90 retail outlets split between 47 Briscoes and 43 Rebel Sports stores, the group achieved record sales of $792 million last year, with net profit after tax of $84.2 million.
Both Rebel Sport and Briscoes are at the forefront of the New Zealand retail landscape, with taglines and jingles that are part of Kiwi life. Under Duke’s stewardship, the twin brands have consistently outperformed their retail rivals for many years.
In 2024 it’s no secret that the retail sector is suffering. Yet, while times are unquestionably tough, Briscoes has remained not only a reliable performer, but a champion one at that. How so? “By sticking to the knitting,” he says.
“I think in tough times it's really important to make yourself look a little different than you did yesterday. So, for us it's more focus on the product that we want to sell, more focus on the deals.
“And when it does get tough, people really are searching for deals. Our stores aren’t in major shopping centres. We're in high streets, in bulk retail centres – they're destination stores. So, I have to give my customers a real reason to get up, jump in the car and get to Briscoes or Rebel Sport as fast as they can.”
Jump in the car and go, they certainly do.
Bucking another trend, Briscoes and Rebel Sport stores – the actual physical bricks and mortar sites – remain destinations for the majority of the brands’ shoppers. In what is undoubtably an online age, how has this remained the case?
“It’s important to make sure that you have the facilities to service your customers in the way they want to be serviced. Some people choose to buy online; some people want to go online, but then pick it up at the store; some people want to come into the store and see what the colour that they're choosing is like in sunlight – the sorts of things that you can't do from a screen that you can do inside a store,” he explains.
“A lot of that is down to the products you sell. With Rebel Sport for example, there are some people who love running and they run in just one size and just one brand and just one style of shoe. It's very easy for them to buy.
“But for many other customers, they change brands, they change colours and it's very difficult from time to time to get precisely the same fit out of a piece of apparel and a perfect fit out of a different shoe that was purchased in the past. So, very often customers who buy apparel and sporting footwear choose to come in and try the product on. It fits and they're off again.”
Getting the product mix right, and the place his brands occupy in the entire New Zealand retail landscape, was critical from the beginning. The position Briscoes held at the time of his arrival was unsustainable, says Duke, so establishing and defending the market position the stores enjoy today stems from decisions made 33 years ago.
“We thought it was important for us to occupy a position where we sold famous, high-quality brand names, but we sold them at the right price,” he says. “Those famous brands were available in New Zealand, but they were very expensive. So, we set about making them affordable. And that market position, even today, is still defendable and it resonates with customers.
“And that hasn't changed. In fact, when you take a quick look at Briscoes and Rebel, a lot hasn't changed. The same people voice the radio commercials. We see Tammy, the Briscoes lady, so often in the ads. The sales, the taglines, the jingles. How much room is there for innovation in what you do in retail? Well, there's as much room as you need.”
Consistency might be crucial in retaining market share, but don’t think for a moment Duke is phobic about change.
“Change is definitely important. You’re not always talking to the same customer, after all. And if what you're saying to them isn’t working, then you better find out pretty quickly, and you better change pretty quickly.
“Customers are the lifeblood of any business. If you're close to them, they'll tell you what they like. They'll also tell you what they don't like. But if you're constantly talking to customers and you're listening to them, then you're prepared.”
In pursuit of giving Kiwi customers what they wanted, Duke stirred the nest soon after his arrival in New Zealand – immediate action that would put his retail ambitions on the front page and change the nature of doing business in the sector forever.
“Back in 1989 we decided to open illegally on Sunday. I was doing a month's trading in a day,” he smiles. “Highly illegal of course, but we got the front page of every paper in the country. It was a win-win: the customers won, Briscoes won. There were no victims. It went down fabulously – got us noticed real quick. Then we just had to keep feeding the machine.”
Recognising that he’s closer to the end of his career than the beginning, Duke says he has sought to surround himself with a clever team of people to guide Briscoe Group in the future. His commitment to staff at all levels of the business is equally lauded. During the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, he guaranteed a salary to all staff, regardless of the restrictions on trading.
“We had no redundancies, we had no time cutbacks, we paid everyone. The government was nice enough to dish out some wage subsidies, which when the fear of another lockdown passed, we gave back to them. The thinking was if we can demonstrate that level of commitment to our staff, then we're in a strong position.”
Despite the allure of the deal, Duke is a people person through and through.
In October this year he received the Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) award for services not only to business, but in also recognition of his wide-ranging philanthropic endeavours.
Organisations that have benefited from Duke’s energies beyond the boardroom include Westpac Rescue Helicopter, Hato Hone St John Ambulance and the Tzu Chi Relief Foundation for overseas relief. Duke is also a patron of Youth in Transition, which looks to teach coping strategies and life skills to young people experiencing forms of mental health problems through its ‘Journey Back to Awesome’ programme.
With the retail world buffeted by headwinds from all directions over the last couple of years, he’s adamant that, in order to continue to lead, the competition needs to be just as carefully scrutinised as the product or service being sold.
“Naturally, in order to sustain success, you need to foster your brand or product as best-in-class. But also, always keep an eye on your competitors because they're not always wrong,” he says.
“Sometimes they think of something really clever that you can adopt. And if you like it, adopt it real quick. Don't let them sit there and get an advantage.
“I know a lot of retail people drift into other retail stores and point out how they do things better than where they're visiting. We don't do that. We go into the stores of our competitors, and we only walk out happy if we can find something that they do a little bit better than us, that we can improve our business with.”
Even after a lifetime in retail, Rod Duke is always eager to learn. And he still loves to sell.
“Yes, we're learning. You can climb somewhere near the top of the pile but it’s tough to stay there. People are always trying to eat your lunch. They're always trying to take your customers. And I'm not going to let them!” he laughs.
“It’s tough out there right now, but we'll get through this. The strongest of the retailers in their sector will survive. Everybody won't survive, but a lot will. I just want to be in a position when I come out of it that I'm in front of a whole lot of others.”
This article was first published in 66 Magazine.