When Ian Robinson bought Beacon Lighting in 1975, the business was a single store in Prahran, Melbourne. Half a century later, Beacon is a national retail force with more than 130 stores, a global footprint and a reputation as one of Australia’s most successful category specialists.
A founding member of the Large Format Retail Association (known at the time as Bulky Goods Retailers Association), Robinson served as President for 14 years from 2002 to 2016 and continues as a Director. He began his career with Beacon Lighting in 1969 and purchased the business in 1975. He served as CEO until 2013, after which he moved into the roles of Executive Director and later Executive Chairman, a position he still holds.
His career has been marked by industry honours, including the LFRA Warwick Shedden Memorial Trophy, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the lighting industry, the Medal of the Order of Australia last year, and most recently the LFRA Lifetime Achievement Award.
When asked about the key retail strategies that enabled Beacon Lighting to scale over the years, Robinson was quick to credit collaboration, culture and caution over conquest as the true foundations of growth.
“The whole journey really started from franchising,” Robinson told Inside Retail. “We were part of the Large Format Retailers Association [formally the Bulky Goods Retailers Association] that was formed in 1999. It was a group of franchisors who got together and had to consider how they were going to grow the business. Franchising very much depended on the scale – the number of stores.”
That sense of collective intelligence, he explained, proved vital. “Associations are very important, because you certainly don’t know it all yourself. You’ve got to associate with people to get their ideas and exchange information and learn from each other. Two minds are better than one.”
Lessons from abroad
Robinson’s willingness to learn didn’t stop at Australia’s borders. In 1992, he joined one of the first Monash University retail study tours to the United States. What he encountered shaped the trajectory of Beacon Lighting and his own philosophy of retail.
“We would get information from the American retailers, because it was all public information about sales turnover, number of stores and growth, and we’d go over to America,” he said. “From that trip in 1992, I learned you need to have something you could replicate – a business, a format that you could roll out.”
But replication wasn’t the only lesson. On repeated visits, Robinson noticed a deeper driver of success.
“After two or three visits, it was all about the culture of the business. The ones who were more open and transparent, and the ones that involved their team, became very successful. The ones that had the old attitude of telling your team members what to do, they kind of slipped away.”
That insight has become a touchstone for his leadership. Running around 130 stores with an estimated 1200 employees is akin to what Robinson dubs “a team play”.
“It’s like a football team or any other team. You’ve got to make sure that you’ve got them empowered, and that they’re excited about coming into work,” he explained.
The rise of large format
When Robinson began his career, the idea of “large format” retail barely existed. “Back in 1967 or the early part of the 70s, there was no such thing as large-format retail,” he recalled.
Over time, retail splintered into specialists. Bedding stores and electronics outlets could buy in bulk, showcase wider ranges and attract shoppers seeking a specific category. What began as a niche approach gradually expanded, becoming a dominant retail model.
According to the LFRA, the sector accounts for about 25 per cent of Australia’s retail turnover and around 35 per cent of all retail floor space.
“I think the Large Format Retail Association has been an incredible success story,” Robinson said. “It certainly has changed dramatically. It’s becoming a little bit more three-dimensional than a shopping experience just for the home. We’re starting to see lifestyle come into it, in regard to gymnasiums, and I hope that we’ll be able to have some more restaurants and things like that in the centres too – mainly to keep the dwell time there.”
Lighting as design, not just necessity
Beacon Lighting’s category has also undergone a dramatic shift. Once a purely functional product, lighting has become a central element of design.
This year, Beacon Lighting celebrated 21 years of supplying lighting for the Channel 9 home renovation show, The Block.
“The Block has been fabulous for us and for the lighting industry,” Robinson said. “It shows a different way of looking at lighting as a decorative component, the way that light helps fill out a room and make it look exciting. In the old days, you might have had one globe in the middle of the room. Nowadays it’s a lot more sophisticated.”
Consumers, he noted, now rely heavily on expertise. “You can research as much [as possible] online, but speaking to someone that’s done it before and you’ve got confidence in them – that’s priceless. Lighting is complicated, a little bit out of people’s comfort zone, and they really do like to get confirmation of what they’re thinking about.”
Conservatism in an era of disruption
Despite his decades of success, Robinson is not one for reckless ambition. His advice to retailers navigating the turbulence of e-commerce, supply chain pressures and sustainability mandates is simple: to build buffers.
“It took me a long period of time to work out that you don’t just go for expansion and put all the profits back into expansion,” he said. “You’ve actually got to make sure you’ve got adequate cash there, because retail is cyclical, and you go through highs and lows. Consumer confidence does jump around quite a lot, and you never know what’s going to be thrown. The biggest advice is to make sure you always get plenty of cash to be able to ride out the hard times.”
Equally, he insists, product passion must remain at the heart of retail.
“Retailers do a thousand things right every day. You’ve got to be expert in a lot of areas, but you’ve got to be absolutely passionate about one particular area. The part you’re going to be passionate about is your product. You need to know the product inside out.”
From his first store in Prahran to his OAM in 2024 and his LFRA Lifetime Achievement Award, Robinson’s journey reflects not just personal success but an era of transformation in Australian retail.
His career embodies the evolution of large-format retail from obscure beginnings to mainstream power, and the enduring truth that people and culture matter more than size alone.
As Robinson put it: “You solve the issues on a day-to-day basis through consultation, involvement, empowerment.”
The post Ian Robinson on scaling Beacon to 130 stores, and why caution beats conquest appeared first on Inside Retail Australia.
