Harvey Norman, which appears to be enjoying strong momentum in Australia, is not experiencing the same level of success in the United Kingdom, even as the retail group pushes ahead with plans to open a second store in the region.

Chairman Gerry Harvey has openly acknowledged that UK consumers “don’t know the Harvey Norman brand,” echoing the brand-recognition challenge that Wesfarmers faced prior to shuttering its UK operations in May 2018.

Despite decades of growth and brand strength in Australia, Harvey Norman remains largely unknown to British shoppers—a fundamental hurdle as it attempts to gain traction in a highly competitive retail market, this is despite the Company buying what is seen as massive naming rights in the centre where the Harvey Norman stores are located.

Harvey concedes that the retailer’s UK expansion has become a “slow burn,” though the financial scale of that slow burn remains unclear. The company’s long-term objective is to establish five stores across England’s West Midlands, a region currently grappling with heightened unemployment levels. As of September 2025, unemployment in the West Midlands stood at 6.1% one of the highest rates in the country—compared with 3.3%  percent in South West England, 3.7%  in Scotland, and 2.4%  in Northern Ireland, where Harvey Norman has operated multiple stores for more than two decades.

Northern Ireland has historically been Harvey Norman’s strongest foothold in the UK & Ireland region. The company first entered the Irish market in 2003, expanding steadily across both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Today, Harvey Norman operates more than a dozen stores across Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Belfast, and other key regional hubs. The Irish operations have generally performed well, supported by strong store formats focused on furniture, bedding, and consumer electronics, and by a more favourable brand reception compared with Great Britain. The company’s Irish footprint has served as a launching pad for its renewed push into the UK, even though translating that success across the Irish Sea has proven challenging.

Harvey says that in conversations with British customers, the feedback is encouraging once they physically enter a Harvey Norman store: “I talk to British customers and they love our shop, but they have never heard of Harvey Norman. ‘What do you sell? Socks?’ But you take them through what you sell, walk them around the floor and they love it—‘you’re fantastic, we love you’. But if you ask 100 English people if you have ever heard of Harvey Norman, 99.9 % say ‘no’.”

At yesterday’s AGM, Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page confirmed that the company remains committed to its UK strategy and will soon open a second showroom in the West Midlands.

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“Our continued expansion in the UK’s West Midlands remains a key market to establish and scale,” Page told shareholders, reiterating that the company sees long-term potential despite slow early growth.

Harvey Norman’s cautious progress in the UK stands in contrast to Wesfarmers’ disastrous foray into the region. In May 2018, Wesfarmers closed its Bunnings UK business, selling the Homebase chain to Hilco Capital for a nominal amount after a failed two-year expansion into the UK and Ireland. Misreading the market, misjudging the brand fit, and failing to win consumer loyalty ultimately led to more than $1 billion in losses and the abrupt termination of the project.

Harvey Norman now faces its own version of this well-documented challenge: proving that an Australian retail success story can resonate with British shoppers—without falling into the same traps as its predecessors.