Store visit: GoodHome Aman Hills

To those who are familiar with how business is done in most of Southeast Asia, it is a sign of good times: the 20,000sqf flagship store, which used to carry 10,000 kinds of products when it opened in 2018, now finds itself with 50,000 kinds of products. It appears to be facing the happy problem of being unable to squeeze in the extra offerings in the now limited space.

"This is Chinese style," David Lau, former general manager of Townview Sdn Bhd - the operator of GoodHome - said in jest. "[For the Chinese], they want to use all the space." Townview is under the Goldmyne Group, a company owned by Brunei-based Chinese-Malaysian businessman Dato’ Sri Lau Kung Ching.  

While the traditional way of arranging the products may not do any favors for aesthetics, it makes the Brunei shoppers happy. Lau said that many of the additional products that GoodHome now carries were requested by its clientele. "The Brunei market, they are always looking for new products," he said. “The Brunei market is not like the Malaysia market where you can keep a brand for a few years. They are asking for fresh, new products," he said.  

The branch in Aman Hills, a mall, is one of the three GoodHome outlets in the sultanate. It specializes in household products. Another store, a 12,000 ft² outlet in Beribi Walk, also a mall, specializes in hardware, while the third branch, a 13,000 ft² standalone shop in the residential area of Madang, is known for its building materials. A fourth branch, to open in the rich area of Jerudong, will specialize in gardening.

But the specalization does not mean that the outlets carry more products under their favoured categories than others - Lau said that it only means that the categories are the best sellers for each branch. He said that all the stores have 30 per cent each of the biggest categories, namely household, building materials, and hardware. Gardening, at this point, is still limited at 10 per cent, he said, but added that once the Jerudong branch opens in November, it will go up in product share.

Lau said that roughly 80 per cent of the products of GoodHome are made in China. The company also makes some of the construction materials it sells in its two factories in Brunei. Floor-to-ceiling metal shelves stand in the open-format warehouse-type setup to house power tools as well as regular implements; high-pressure jet cleaners; paint…