CULTCHA CLUB IS GROWING
RISK: Popcultcha director Ash Howard with Dobby the elf at the display gallery at Federal Mills.
FOR an online retailer with about 20,000 lines and moving more than 1000 pieces a day, investing in a bricks and mortar showroom in a non-shopping precinct is an adventurous step.
But Popcultcha is playing the long game with its huge new destination store at Federal Mills Park in North Geelong.
The eye-catching gallery showcasing the global online retailer’s high-end statues and collectibles might be living up to its owner’s hopes of being the largest of its type in the world, but some days trade and foot traffic are thin.
Popcultcha company director Ash Howard said he was taking a “build it and they will come approach” when he opened a high-end gallery in the converted industrial precinct at the end of last year.
“I wanted to create something that no one else in the world has created in our industry,” Mr Howard said.
He described the move as one of the company’s riskiest since launching the Popcultcha brand about 10 years ago from the remnants of his parents’ retail store Card Mania in McLarty Place in the CBD.
The gallery concept takes its inspiration from showrooming, “a wanky ecommerce term” for online retailers who invest in a real world space to display products that are sold online through an assisted shopping experience.
“I am not expecting results straight away. I think it’s going to gain momentum,” Mr Howard said.
Interstate visitors have already sought out the store for rare items.
Popcultcha has traded from a Moorabool St store for many years but its core business is the online operation based in the North Shore warehouse it shares with his family’s massive wholesaling business, Ikon Collectibles.
He said being “surrounded by cardboard” left him frustrated that pieces were kept in storage and didn’t give the public, or staff, a chance to appreciate them.
“I wanted the ability for our staff to immerse themselves in what we are selling,” Mr Howard said.
“If they can appreciate it, then they can also help sell that to somebody else.”
Mr Howard’s ability to combine an element of nostalgia with solid business instincts has served him well in the past.
Having worked as a lawyer and accountant in Melbourne and London, he returned to the family business after the focus of parents John and Judy Howard and his uncle Glenn Howard had turned to wholesaling, leaving the retailing arm in need of attention.
Having served behind the counter at Card Mania as a teenager, the opportunity to reinvent the retail side of the business offered great appeal.
“Maybe for nostalgic reasons I was drawn to wanting to do something with that and I also wanted a challenge that was away from what my parents were doing,” Mr Howard said.
But the store was mostly selling action figures, not trading cards, so he rebadged the business as Popcultcha, aimed at a wider customer base. Continued PAGE 17