‘Loving’ the Opportunity
Anand Thomas and his wife Ru recently took ownership of ‘I Love This Shop’ Melton. Anand comes to the business following 25 years in the corporate life and is embracing the chance to see the immediate impact on customers.
Venture Melton caught up with Anand to learn more about how he came to Melton, and his goals for growth in the future.
Tell us the story of your business.
The I Love This Shop story is now about 14 years old. Founded by Eddie Garni, a 30-year veteran in the discount and variety retail business, the shop is focused on providing customers with quality products at affordable prices.
The quirky name came from Eddie’s customers, walking up to the counters in others stores that he had owned saying “I love this shop! There is always something exciting in here, even though I didn’t come in to buy anything, I always walk out with something.”
The concept of giving customers a huge range of party supplies and a variety of merchandise also makes your journey through the store a lot of fun. Whether you’re looking for party costumes, helium balloons, pet accessories or something for the home, you will usually find it in-store.
In recent years, I Love This Shop has become a one-stop confectionery and cake supplies store. Stocking over 5000 items in these two categories alone. With over 40,000 products in the Melton store, our aspiration is for I Love This Shop – Melton to be your destination for party and variety for the community in Melbourne West.
What is your background and connection to the City of Melton?
Born and brought up in India, I came to Melbourne in 2000 to pursue my master’s degree in business management. I have over 25 years of customer servicing and marketing experience in financial services. In the last five years I have been exploring business opportunities to own, having experienced corporate redundancy twice. I met Eddie in mid-2023, and after spending a bit of time researching Melton and the I Love This Shop store, my wife Ru and I decided to buy the store in Melton.
My wife Ru is from Sri Lanka and she like me came to Australia to do her master’s degree in business management. Ru works for the YMCA and supports me behind the scenes on the financial management aspects of managing the store.
Our first exposure to Melton was way back in around 2005, when Ru and I came close to buying our first home in Caroline Springs. Since owning the store from mid-November, I have come to admire the spirit of entrepreneurship and growth in the Melton community and I am committed to helping Melton and its community grow. In the last four months, we have taken up sponsorship opportunities with the Western Rams Football Sporting Club as well as the Melton Centrals Junior Netball Club. We also support a number of charity events and schools in Melton for events they host. We are also supporting the Mother’s Day Classic in Caroline Springs on 12 May. In addition to providing a great in-store experience for our customers, our aim is to reach out and support the community with needs they may have through the diverse range of product solutions we have.
Share something about you and how you came into this area of business
To be absolutely honest, I stumbled on the I Love This Shop opportunity by a chance meeting with a business broker. Whilst I did not see myself being a store owner, I do have a strong predisposition to building strong teams that provide customers with good products and services. The I Love This Shop eco-system gives me an opportunity to do just that, and for this I am extremely grateful and it was an opportunity too good to resist.
What are some of the challenges you’ve experienced?
Whilst I wouldn’t call it a challenge, probably the biggest thing for me was to come up to speed and learn an absolutely new industry, and doing this in its peak season, November to December – when I bought the store. It was a baptism by fire. Thankfully I am part of a good ecosystem which includes having great staff and a licensor, together they all helped me come up to speed in quick time.
Speaking to members of the community, I have received some feedback that our store location is not that well known. So, lifting awareness is a key area of focus for me. Today we serve around 350 customers a day, and I believe through more marketing, the opportunity to serve more customers a day is definitely there.
With some of these fundamentals now in place, I know that my team will try their best to service our customers and in the event we don’t immediately have what a customer is after, we will do our best to source it at a good price.
What has surprised you in the business?
The absolute joy of owning this business and seeing the immediate and real impact one can make to a person’s day versus the nuances of corporate life I was used to for the past 25 years. It is a great feeling to see a smile on a customer’s face when they leave the store, and in many cases getting to know their stories. I am a strong believer in providing that personal experience, which in many ways is what differentiates us to online retailing.
What’s coming up next for your business?
My team and I are continuing to experiment with our in-store experience to delight our customers. In parallel to this, I am actively pursuing opportunities to support the local community – be it schools, childcare centres, events, charities, worship centres, restaurants, etc. I have every intention for I Love This Shop to become the destination of choice for party and variety for the Melton LGA. Later this year, we are scheduled to open our second store in Melton, so stay tuned for more on that front.
How can people get in touch with you?
Visit our store, which is located in Central Walk Shopping Centre, 415-429 High Street Melton. We are next to Foodworks and near Tasman Butchers on High Street.
You can also like and follow us on Facebook, which is our primary destination to keep customers updated on our specials.