Our history
It takes courage, vision and a lot of hard work to start a business from scratch and that is exactly what the two original founders of Fantastic Furniture, Paul Harding and Jonathan De Jong had. The business first started as a stall at Parklea markets selling plastic garden furniture. The first Fantastic Furniture store was opened at Birkenhead Point in 1991.
In 1992, the Fantastic Lounge Factory was opened and commenced production of excellent value lounges for the Fantastic stores. 1995 saw the opening of the Fantastic Metal Factory, producing sturdy metal furniture at competitive prices. Clever advertising and product development saw Fantastic Furniture grow incredibly within a few years. Unfortunately the growth was so rapid that systems were unable to keep up and in early 1996 the founders were forced to call in an Administrator to take control of the business. As a result, three new directors, Peter Brennan, Peter Draper and Julian Tertini brought their capital and experience to help take the Company to its next stage of development. The latter part of 1996 was a period of consolidation with the aim of building a solid foundation to support the eventual expansion of the concept.
1997 marked the opening of our successful Imports Division who currently distribute over 50% of Fantastic Furniture’s product lines. This year also saw several new store openings.
Our first $1,000,000 sales week occurred in May 1998 and a celebration party was held in recognition of our stores’ great achievement. The first retail catalogue was distributed to over 1 million households in 1999.
Fantastic Holdings Limited listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in September 1999.
The year 2000 saw the expansion of Fantastic Furniture into Victoria and a celebration of the first $2,000,000 retail sales week. Following this milestone event, Fantastic Furniture continued to open new stores throughout Australia.
In 2006, Fantastic Lounge Factory (FLF) relocated to a purpose built facility in Fairfield to accommodate their growing capacity. Currently FLF is capable of producing in excess of 550 lounges every single day. The same year saw our parent company FHL acquire Royal Comfort Bedding, a mattress manufacturer based in NSW with the capacity to produce the entire mattress range for Fantastic Furniture.
2008 also saw new store openings for Fantastic Furniture including expansion into the Western Australian market. As sales revenues and market share continue to grow and with many more stores scheduled to open over the next few years together with the potential for future off-shore expansion in both retail and manufacturing, the future is looking bright for Fantastic Furniture.