lf of these sales coming from returning customers.  MyDeal founder Sean Senvirtne told Inside Retail the business’ growth has largely come thanks to keeping the business focused on doing what it does best.  “You [need] to have a bit of long-term thinking – a long-term mission for the businesses. It’s like: you know you’ll get good weather, you know you’ll get bad weather, but when you sit in the ship, you’re gonna have a very clear destination in mind,” Senvirtne said.  “We are not trying to be everything for everyone. Early on, we tried to do a bit of fashion and it didn’t really work out, so we pulled it back in 2017. “There are always going to be opportunities, but what we’re trying to do is to stay focused on what we’re good at. There are certain areas that we want to try out, but we do have a big focus when it comes to homewares and furniture.” $1 billion goal That’s not to say Senvirtne is comfortable with just keeping the business steady. He’s chasing a $1 billion sales figure – a difficult feat for an online-only business operating in a crowded market with low online penetration. Australia’s online homewares market’s sales sit at about 7 per cent of the broader sector’s total according to Senvirtne, a far cry from the roughly 20 per cent seen in the United States and United Kingdom.  And though the sector is tipped to grow around 9 per cent in 2022, according to IbisWorld, compared to other countries Australia is slow. “Online has a long way to go [in Australia],” Senvirtne said.  “The biggest bottleneck we see is the ability for freight and courier companies to keep up with the growth and demand that we’re seeing in the [homewares] market. But we think that will even itself out in the coming years.” Thanks to the pandemic pushing more people into reevaluating their living quarters, buying homewares and furniture online is becoming more common for consumers – delivering the growth that MyDeal had been preparing itself for for the past ten years.  Now, Senvirtne is assembling an all-star team to drive the business into the next decade.  From chief marketing officer Ryan Gracie, formerly of Catch, to Milan Direct co-founder and former Temple & Webster executive Dean Ramler, now MyDeal’s chief merchandising officer, Senvirtne is betting on the experience and drive of his team.  “It’s very much a talent game, and there’s a very limited amount of talent that has that kind of experience in e-commerce,” Senvirtne said.  And with that talent, MyDeal is beginning to look overseas for new opportunities, with the potential of launching MyDeal’s private label brands on New Zealand marketplaces on the horizon as a soft launch into the region.  “We definitely see an opportunity there,” said Senvirtne.  “We see [working with other marketplaces] as the first step, and then an opportunity to expand our footprint there in the years to come.” “Shop Happy” Part of the business’ growth also comes down to a well-timed and “overdue” rebrand last August. While many brands see a dip in sales following a rebrand, as a level of consumer confusion kicks in, MyDeal saw the opposite.  “It was the other way around – the new brand resonated with our customers. Now our brand is very recognisable, and we’ve got the money to put branding behind that,” Senvirtne said.  “When we started MyDeal ten years ago, it was very much a start-up. We didn’t think about creating a brand, which worked back in the day, but it was really due for a revamp.” Part of the revamp was exposing the brand to new customers through a more traditional marketing approach than it had tried before, encouraging customers to ‘Shop Happy’ across TV, radio, and out-of-home marketing.  According to chief marketing officer Gracie, it’s the “first step on a journey to make MyDeal famous”.