Gerry Harvey: The Internet Doesn’t Work, But We’ll Still Be Australia’s Biggest Online Retailer


Gerry Harvey is a force of nature. Every time he opens his mouth, gold pours out. Not any gold, though: aural gold in the form of ridiculous sound bites. Gerry’s latest media outing is no different, slamming the internet, the problem with kids today while rebranding the Xbox and Playstation.

[credit provider=”getty” creator=”Patrick Riviere”]

Gerry sat down with Ten Late News to talk about all things retail, including his stores and online businesses, and with a whip of bravado, he launched into his diatribe.

First cab off the rank was the Australian retail environment, which I will give him, is actually in some trouble. But then:

I think one day you’ll find that Harvey Norman is the biggest online retailer in Australia. But it’s not going to happen overnight.

Harvey Norman has a good online store by comparison to the co-founder’s hatred of all things online, but the largest in Australia? I think not.

In the same breath, however, Gerry said labelled the internet as a fundamental failure:

Look, I’ll go down in history as saying the internet doesn’t work and it will. I don’t know where that comes from. That will be on my epitaph I presume.

So in the space of thirty seconds, Gerry Harvey said that he’ll become the largest retailer in the country on a platform he believes is a failure. Riiiiight.

Any other pearls of wisdom, Gerry? How about one saying kids are lazy because of video games?

I think one of the great tragedies with youth is that they spend so much time playing games and crap on computers and they’re not outside. You’re not healthy and it’s a big problem in our society. If I could get rid of computers, all leisure computers for all of Australia I probably would. They can have them at school, but leisure time — no.

We’re talking about kids playing games mostly online and wasting their life away basically playing games online because they’re not getting any physical activity and their minds are screwed up on these games.

Sigh.

Watch the full interview here. [Kotaku]

Mark Serrels contributed to this article.


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