Williams-Sonoma expands offering to Melbourne High-end housewares and furnishings retailer Williams-Sonoma will open its second store in Australia soon after securing a lease in Melbourne's fashionable shopping strip Chapel Street. Williams-Sonoma leads a vanguard overseas retail brands taking advantage of Australia's relatively strong economy and the growing reach on online sales. President and CEO Laura Alber, visiting Australia to tour the retailers maiden store in Bondi and address the Retail World Expo, said there were great opportunities for the business in the region with Australia already the retailer's biggest market outside of North America thanks to the huge popularity of online shopping. Williams-Sonoma, which owns brands such as Pottery Barn and West Elm, has annual sales of more than $US4 billion and last year made 750,000 home deliveries of its furniture to US homes. Ms Alber said the future of retail was an omni-channel model where retailers could match a bricks and mortar stores network with a compelling online offer. "I think that's the future," said Ms Alber. Think about it from a consumer perspective. Wouldn't you like to be able to do both, to shop at both bricks and mortar and online. Williams-Sonoma grew from a catalog business and currently has a portfolio of stores in North America and opened its first Australian store in Sydney on May 2. The retailer books 47 per cent of all its revenue either online or through a call centre. Of that, 90 per cent of transactions are executed online. Ms Alber said its direct to customer sales should lift soon from 47 per cent to 50 per cent. The retailer will open a West Elm store in Melbourne soon after securing a lease in Chapel Street. The reality is as we shopped the Australian market there is not a lot of people doing what we are doing, so there is a gap in the market place for affordable well designed home furnishings. Williams-Sonoma is one of many well known international retail brands that have flocked to Australia recently, with others such as Zara from Spain, Japanese department store Uniqlo and H&M also looking to set up or have already established a base.