Dick Smith Company

Explore the history and downfall of Dick Smith Company, one of the largest Australian retail stores. Learn about the aggressive expansion, wrong decisions, and the fight made by Kogan to overpower it.

Running head: DICK SMITH COMPANY
Dick Smith Company
Name of the University:
Name of the Student:
Author Note:

1
Dick Smith Company
Dick Smith Holdings Limited, also known as the Dick Smith Electronics, was one of
the largest Australian Retail Stores that sold consumer goods and electronic goods and
electronic projects kits. Founded in the year 1968, with its’ headquarter in Chullora,
Australia, the company had taken into account aggressive expansion across the world.
However, certain wrong decision had led the company to its final closure in the year 2016.
Formerly, the founding father, Dick Smith, had to sell 60% of his company to the
Woolworths Limited, in the year 1980, and sold the rest of the 40% within 2 years. Finally,
the company was closed in the year 2016, after the acquisition of the same by Anchorage
Capital Partners (Gosnell, 2017). However in the following essay the history of the company
is assessed and the fight made by Kogan, to overpower it is illustrated.
The company stepped into business in the year 1968, in a small, rented parking space,
with a capital of $610, and initially dealt with servicing and installing the car radios.
Gradually, the company expanded business and shifted to a much bigger space in the first
Atkinson Street and further, to their flagship store near the Pacific Highway. Along with
shifting to bigger spaces and acquitting grand offices, the company also expanded its focus
area, with including other electronic gadgets and refurbishing imported electronic gadgets,
into its business orientation (Barut, 2017). Further, the company included into its strategies,
electronic hobbyists and electronic kits. At that point of time, electronic hobbyists were only
sold at wholesale electronic stores, which gave the company an edge in the business, as by
that time, the company had already turned itself into an electronic wholesale and already
stepped into the world market, expanding itself overseas, and emerged as a self-served
shopping, free from the long counter-standing sales set up, as was the practice at that time
and also kept the record of the customer purchase and produced an annual mail order
database at the end of the year, that helped the company to expand and extend and maintain

2
Dick Smith Company
loyal customers (Barut, 2017). Therefore, as can be seen the company had acquired a number
of strategies and a sustainable approach to expand its business.
However, with time, certain wrong decisions and strategies had robbed the founder
off its acquisition and ownership. According to the researchers, the aggressive store extension
of the company and the straining he supplier relationships and buying quite many inventories,
are the prime reason of the company to lose out on its ownership. These consumer behaviour
showed that the company could not retain its generated revenue and could not achieve
sustainable profit (Annabel, & Scrymgeour, 2017). Moreover, according to the researchers,
the growth of the organisation depended upon the network growth, which was strained by the
consumer activities of the company. And finally this led the company to the selling off of
certain acquisitions. This led the other companies to take over the ownership of the company,
and in the year 1980, the company first, sold off 60% of its share to the Woolworths Limited.
The company was still sustaining upon its online services and some of its other chains.
However, Woolworths sold 100 stores of the company to Anchorage capital and the company
lost its total ownership and was run under Anchorage Capital. Finally, with its online share
sold to Kogan, the company saw its final closure in the year 2016 (Ayres & Odegaard, 2017).
Thus, a company that initially showed a grand start, got completely shattered within
50 years of its birth.

3
Dick Smith Company
References:
Barut, S. (2017). Life begins at 40. Connected: Home+ Business, (Jun 2017), 54.
Gosnell, P. (2017). The Australian retail landscape in 2017. Australian Restructuring
Insolvency & Turnaround Association Journal, 29(3), 20.
Annabel, B., & Scrymgeour, M. (2017). Business: Retail matters: Readings from the'book of
retail'. AJP: The Australian Journal of Pharmacy, 98(1160), 60.
Ayers, J. B., & Odegaard, M. A. (2017). Retail supply chain management. CRC Press.