How Australia’s Ruslan Kogan Built an Off-Brand Online Retail Empire

From 1,000 cheap TVs to an Australian online retail empire.

- Ashlee Vance

Australia’s most aggressive online retailer got its start with an impulse buy. A decade ago, Ruslan Kogan was living in Melbourne, fresh out of school and doing consulting work for Accenture. At night, he made extra cash selling imported T-shirts and wallets on EBay. He decided to lay out some of his savings on a high-end, $5,000 TV but didn’t want to pay full price.

On a whim, Kogan contacted the brand’s little-known Asian manufacturer. He posed as a retailer, claiming he’d be interested in buying 100,000 TVs if the company would send him a sample unit for cheap. The TV maker made him a way better offer: all 100,000 for $1,000 a pop. “In that moment, I thought, There is a real gap in the market here,” Kogan recalls. “I quit my job, and my mum cried because I was going to become a TV salesman.”

It proved to be a good bet. Kogan couldn’t afford to pay for 100,000 TVs, but he persuaded the manufacturer to sell him 1,000 at a deep discount. They were the first items he branded with his name and sold on his website, Kogan.com, now one of Australia’s fastest-growing businesses. The site makes most of its money selling Kogan-branded electronics and other private-label gear. Five years ago it moved $14 million in goods; Kogan estimates this year’s total will top $356 million.

Kogan, now 33, was one of the first in Australia to master online retail. That’s partly because the country’s traditional retailers, such as Harvey Norman, were slow to embrace the Internet and build easy-to-navigate websites, says Steven Noble, senior analyst at Australian researcher Telsyte. “Ruslan was one of the first people to form direct relationships with the manufacturers in China,” Noble says. “He got there early and became a big player.”