Kmart to rollout more K Home stores and eyes bigger push into the Philippines under Anko brand

Kmart is looking to roll out more standalone homeware stores across the country as well as open additional locations in the Philippines under the booming Anko brand.

As revealed by The West Australian, the Wesfarmers’-owned discount department store chain opened a new 3000sqm home concept store called K Home in Melbourne in June, which sells furniture and storage pieces previously only sold online.

Wesfarmers boss Rob Scott on Thursday said it was “performing really well, so we’re really excited about the concept”.

“We’re getting really good growth in the furniture category that was only previously available online by putting that product into stores,” he said as he unveiled Wesfarmers’ 2026 financial year results.

“We are looking forward to opening more stores.”

Not only were customers buying furniture in the physical store, Mr Scott said they were also adding more items into their shopping baskets. But there was a bit more work to do to really optimise the offer, he said.

“Whenever you launch a new store, you want to make sure you really get the model right, that you get it optimised before you ramp it up,” Mr Scott said when asked about plans to expand K Home nationally.

“(Kmart Group managing director) Aleks (Spaseska) and the team still have a bit of work to do there.”

Mr Scott also said it would consider ramping up the number of Anko stores in the Philippines, where it currently has six.

He said Wesfarmers’ Anko Global wholesale business had “started to slow down” as a result of retailer anxiety around tariffs.

“(It’s) quite challenging to actually get a lot of foreign retailers to commit when there was so much volatility around the tariff situation, so we’ve really just doubled down on our activities in the Philippines,” Mr Scott said.

He added Philippines’ retail environment was very competitive.

“There are some fantastic shopping malls, there’s a lot of international brands, and I think it’s really a sign of the effectiveness of Anko that it does compete really well against a lot of the international brands that are there,” he said.

“We’ve got a really good partnership with a group called Ayala that owns a lot of shopping malls, and we’re looking to just continue to refine the offer and then hopefully open more stores in the year ahead.”