Corporate

Experience and Evolution

For over 25 years, Direct Group has been focused on servicing the direct to consumer market. When the company was launched in the mid 1980’s, marketing was primarily through catalogues and other printed material. Over the last ten years the emphasis has changed dramatically to include television, 16 websites and online marketing.

All the specialist knowledge gained over the years has allowed the group to optimise its processes, systems and infrastructure to service a direct to consumer business model.

Organisationally, the group is divided into three main operating divisions, each run relatively autonomously with selected services such as warehousing, distribution and IT infrastructure provided by a shared corporate team.

Direct Marketing

The Group’s original business unit, Innovations, has since expanded to include an additional five brands - Damart, Fox Collection, Victoria Hill, Entertainment Masters and Gaiam. Each brand offers unique product ranges servicing different customer demographics through their Australian and New Zealand websites supported by catalogues, emails, online promotions and other marketing activities.

Direct Television

The TVSN and EXPO channels broadcast 24 hour shopping content on the Foxtel, Austar and Optus subscription TV services in Australia, as well as a live stream to their in-house websites. TVSN provides live TV shopping, showcasing a wide variety of merchandise in beauty, health, homewares, jewellery, fashion and electrical. EXPO’s business model is to sell airtime to external Direct Response TV advertisers in 30 second, 4 minute and half hour formats.

Direct Selling

HomeCare works through a network of over 1,500 commissioned agents distributing catalogues direct to households throughout Australia and New Zealand. Customer orders are entered by distributors online, allowing an accurate mapping of the customer database to support future distributor activity.

Direct, Multi Channel Customer Communications

The key emphasis of the group is to interact directly with its customers, utilizing websites, emails, catalogues and other printed material, television and distributors.

The following snapshot provides an indication of the level of pro-active communications carried out by the group per year:

At the core of the communication stream is a comprehensive customer profile including location, product interests and buying history. This information allows the group to communicate selectively and non-intrusively with customers, at the same time as protecting their privacy by holding only the information necessary to service their buying needs. This rich source of customer information enables the group to accurately predict future customer behaviour as well as identifying emerging buying trends, uniquely positioning the group to meet their ongoing consumer needs.

Product Diversity

The group has developed a number of well established brands, each servicing a market niche of clearly defined loyal customers. This has enabled the group to develop product sourcing teams that are each totally focused on developing product ranges tailored to the interests and buying habits of their customers.

The expansion of the number of brands has allowed us to provide our existing and new customers a much richer product offering. Cross marketing between brands has increased both customer loyalty and average customer spend making customer acquisition more cost effective and providing a launch pad for new catalogues and product categories.

Key market niches serviced are:

Innovations

Innovative general merchandise, furniture, gifts and bedding

Damart

Mature women's apparel and thermalwear for all

The Fox Collection

Needlework and craft

Gaiam

Lifestyle of health and sustainability

Entertainment Masters

Packaged home entertainment

Victoria Hill

Women's fashion apparel, shoes and accessories

Homecare

Small kitchen appliances, homewares and personal items

TVSN

Jewellery, beauty, health, electrical and homewares