Frontline Stores Australia Limited Head Office, Canterbury, VIC
HAPPY 90TH BIRTHDAY FRONTLINE STORES In September this year Frontline Stores celebrated its 90th birthday. Therefore, we would like to share the history of how our Group was founded.
Members. Prior to this time, promotional merchandise had been obtained through local Australian manufacturers and importers.
In 1931 four Victorian Country Merchants banded together to form Newtorian Merchants Pty Ltd.
As a result of this, Newtorian Merchants was regarded as an importer, therefore it was decided that a new body be created, Quantity Merchandise Buyers Pty Ltd (QMB). The basic philosophy of this company was different in that it extended the membership base to include specialty stores such as Menswear, Ladieswear & Manchester. It created purchasing relationships between Members and Suppliers, which resulted in preferential discounts to Member stores for bulk buys of merchandise. These relationships resulted in the term “Preferred Suppliers”, which we use today.
The four founders of the Group were WJ Gorman (Yarrawonga), WJ Bowring (Mildura), GM Hawthorne (Kerang) and FAJ Langlands (Horsham). They appointed Hartley & Turner in Moorabbin to be the managing agents, which would last until 1984. The ensuing 30 years from 1931 to 1961, were to see the membership grow from 4 to 27, with the Group’s makeup continuing to be dominated by Victorian country stores. As the stores were predominantly departmental, the activities of Newtorian Merchants revolved around promotional merchandise and catalogues, together with negotiation on behalf of members for “special best buy items”. The years from 1962 to 1974 saw the Group expand into other states, with a total membership in 1974 of 41. From late 1974 the direction of the Group began to change, with Newtorian Merchants becoming involved in importing to provide exclusive promotional merchandise for its
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Toward the end of 1984 membership participation and growth continued in both companies. However, the retail mergers and takeovers which had begun in earnest in 1982, started to erode the importance of the importing function, together with the membership base of Newtorian Merchants. Despite these setbacks, by late 1984 the Group had an involvement with some 190 stores. With the move in the membership base away from departmental stores, and the subsequent declining relevance of
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importing, there was an opportunity to create an independently run group. In what were very uncertain times, the Directors seized that opportunity and through the sale of import quotas, raised sufficient capital to finance an operation independent of Hartley & Turner. In order to protect all parties, it was decided that both Newtorian Merchants & QMB would be incorporated in a new company, thus Frontline Stores Pty Ltd was formed. The company began operation at its premises in Hartwell in January 1985. From 1985, the membership and turnover of Frontline Stores continued to grow beyond all expectations. The Association of many hundreds of retailers had established itself as a major buying force. In 1986 it became clear that the continued operation of three companies, Newtorian Merchants, QMB and Frontline Stores Pty Ltd was unduly cumbersome and expensive to maintain. Therefore, the Directors decided to create a new company Frontline Stores Australia Limited and liquidate the other three companies. We continue to serve members and suppliers from our current premises in Canterbury, where our membership numbers are over 600.
