LURING FISHERS
TACKLING ONLINE
ONE of the first and largest independent tackle shops in Australia is taking the fight to its competitors.
Clifton Beach-based Bransfords Discount Tackle Shop is investing heavily in a new website as online sales take off.
Business development manager Truls Fauske said the site had only been upgraded once in 10 years.
“We’ve been left behind over the past three to four years. We are making sure this will be the biggest and the best,” he said.
“It will be built to a scale so we will be competitive nationally as a regional level store.”
Mr Fauske said Bransfords had been overtaken by larger stores and websites in Sydney.
“Now we are trying to make a really massive play online,” he said.
Mr Fauske said the new website would be responsive to all search devices, including smartphones and tablets, something the current site lacked.
He said Bransfords dominated the online space up until about two years ago.
“We have suffered in Google searches and rankings relatively and this will get us back to what we were,” Mr Fauske said.
“The volume of traffic has stayed the same over the last three years. We have missed out on the growth in online space.”
Mr Fauske said Bransfords was working with vendors to get the best prices and products, and the shipping and courier companies to improve delivery as well as ensuring the ordering system was top notch.
He said quicker delivery was part of the upgraded service. Mr Fauske said about $60,000 had been invested in the overhaul. “It’s probably two-thirds complete. There is a lot of product to be added to our product catalogue as well as a lot of testing,” he said.
Mr Fauske said owner Keith Graham wanted the website finished and up and running by the end of July when the Australian Fishing Trade Association’s national conference was held on the Gold Coast.
He said customers came from the Far North as well as Cape York Peninsula, the Torres Strait and Papua New Guinea, the Northern Territory, southeast Queensland and New South Wales.
“New South Wales is surprising because they have the largest online stores,” Mr Fauske said.
Bransfords is one of the top five tackle stores in terms of turnover in Australia.
The store is dedicated to the memory of Australia’s greatest game fishing pioneer George Bransford, who first experienced Cairns during World War II in 1943.
He returned in the 1960s and in September 1966 – with Canadian deckie Richard Obach – caught a world record 1000 pound marlin on an 80 pound line.
That was the start of the city’s international reputation as the ‘ black marlin capital of the world’.
Anglers came from far and wide to ply the pristine waters, including Hollywood actor Lee Marvin, author Wilbur Smith, golfer Jack Nicklaus, actor Ernest Borgnine and US president Jimmy Carter.
Mr Bransford eventually opened his own Bransfords in Cairns, then sold up and moved to Hawaii.
However, after 10 years he came back to Australia, first to the Gold Coast and then Cairns where he died in 1994.
We have suffered in Google searches and rankings relatively and this will get us back to what we were
TRULS FAUSKE