Billionaire Gerry Harvey has revealed robots will soon be welcoming shoppers at his Harvey Norman stores, declaring the shift is coming ‘faster than anyone expects’. 

He said customers will be greeted by a robot at the front door within the next one to two years, heralding a new era of machine‑and‑human service on the shop floor. 

Mr Harvey told Business Weekend that shoppers at the furniture and electronics retailer will be served by a combination of sales people and robots.

‘I guarantee you we will have a robot in the front door in the next year or two,’ he said.

‘When you come in you’ll have the choice of talking to the robot or you talk to the salesperson or you can talk to both.’

Mr Harvey said the customer will be able to communicate with a robot or multiple robots to receive customer service.

‘It’ll be an experience walking into our shops and people will (say) “Wow, the robot welcomed me in and then I talked to another robot and then there was another robot over there and another salesperson helping there”,’ he said.

‘It’s all just around the corner.

Retail billionaire Gerry Harvey (pictured) said customers will be greeted by a robot at the front door within the next one to two years, heralding a new era of machine‑and‑human service

Frenzy about in-store robots emerged briefly in Australia late last year when Andrew Bell launched his company Bellbots which aims to put robots (pictured) into shopping centres

‘Then (we’re) bringing people back into your shops. (We’ll) bring them in to show them the latest technology, the latest products, the new ideas that are coming out all across the place.’

Excitement over in-store robots emerged in Australia late last year when Andrew Bell launched Bellbots, aiming to put robots in shopping centres to help consumers. 

While it would not function as Mr Harvey plans, the Bellbots robots help carry shopping bags, provide company, act as an interpreter and give information on products.

Japan is also looking to use robots in its stores that would stock shelves and clean floors to compensate for worker shortages.

Some Aussies were not happy about plans to introduce robots at the stores.

‘No thanks. We will be shopping elsewhere when that happens,’ one wrote on Facebook.

Another added: ‘No more Harvey Norman for me.’

Mr Harvey’s robot revelation comes as the company’s share price took a beating on Friday.

Questioned whether he thought a move to robot services will be profitable, Mr Harvey said he was interested in making money off it but is happy to see the project get off the ground anyway

The company’s 6.9 per cent increase in sales revenue and 15.6 per cent lift in profit after tax came in below market expectations and the share price slumped nine per cent.

Mr Harvey said he was perplexed by the stock fall, stating ‘some things are a mystery’.

‘I thought the share price will stay the same (or) go up a bit. It goes down (nine) per cent,’ he said.

‘You look at that and think, ‘Our real estate’s very strong, our sales in all the overseas countries are going well, our sale here are going well. We made a pretty good profit. What did we do wrong?’

‘Some things are a mystery. Some things are a mystery.’

Questioned whether he thought a move to robot services will be profitable, Mr Harvey said he was interested in making money off it but would be happy to see the project get off the ground regardless.

‘I’m not doing it for the fun of it,’ he said.

‘But if it ends up that I don’t make any money and it was just for the fun of, it’ll be worthwhile, won’t it?’