Sage Australia seals retail deal

WA-based Sage Australia has signed its first retail sales agreement with Harvey Norman Holdings to sell Sage’s range of accounting and business software through the nationwide chain.

Sage Instant Accounting, Sage Line 50, Sagepos, and Sagepay are now available in selected Harvey Norman stores throughout Australia.

The rollout to stores included intensive staff training and began in WA and New South Wales.

Harvey Norman Cannington and Osborne Park stores commenced training last fortnight.

Sage Distribution Australia managing director John Marshall said demand for the products was at an all time high.

Mr Marshall said the company predicted that more than half of all new accounting software customers would make their business software purchases from retail chain stores.

“Sage makes 51 per cent of its sales in the UK from retail and there’s no reason Australia won’t follow this trend,” Mr Marshall said.

“With the introduction of the GST, thousands of businesses are upgrading their software and this demand far outstrips the capacity of our current reseller channel.

“With this aggressive market strategy, we expect $12 million in turnover in the next year in Australia.

“We anticipate 15,000 to 20,000 new users will come on board.”

Mr Marshall said the company had new web-based, hosted products in development that would link to Sage accounting packages.

He said the company would remain WA-based.

“We’re proud Western Australians and the beauty of being in our time zone means we offer eastern states clients two extra contact hours for product support.”