This is a question we are often asked. With so many companies around with Shade in their name it’s easy to get confused about who is who and who does what.. so here’s a brief history of The Shade Centre.
In 1985 two brothers, Tony and Paul Hopkins, decided to get a shadehouse for Paul’s wife Adrienne. After searching around they found there were not many people who supplied shadehouses. That’s when a brilliant idea began, out of the backyard of Paul & Adrienne’s house they started Garden of Eden Shadehouses. The business began from humble beginnings of installing shadehouses on the northside of Brisbane after hours and on weekends. After a few years the business was growing steadily and customers were asking for various types of shadecloth that they couldn’t find in hardware stores. Seeing that there was an obvious demand in the market for all different types of shadecloth, Paul and Tony, along with their wives Adrienne and Janet (respectively) started The Shade Centre. After the success of Expo 88 here in Brisbane there was a lot of enquiries from customers wanting shade sails instead of pergolas so they expanded into that industry offering a made to measure installation service.
In 1991 they purchased a small shop in the backstreets of Stafford. After a few coats of paint, construction of a large storage shed and some landscaping out the back, The Shade Centre was born. During this time the business focused on the garden side of shade with shadehouses, shadecloth, irrigation and garden pots but soon they expanded into the sale of Garden and Market Umbrellas, locally made arts & crafts and the Aquashade Umbrella (a large permanently installed umbrella that operated via the use of a garden hose).
In 1994 Tony, Paul, Janet & Adrienne had built the business up and were no longer able to run things themselves while also working other jobs so they employed their first full time staff member. Over the next few years the business kept expanding the product range with lots of shade products from Coolaroo and Beach Products from Shelta Australia. With lots of interstate enquiries from customers who couldn’t find affordable products locally, they began offering Australia Wide delivery.
By 2001 The Shade Centre had outgrown it’s Stafford store and the team purchased a brand new unit in the new industrial area of Brendale. With more space they expanded their range to include gazebos, Covers, Building Site products and Stainless Steel Hardware.
In early 2002 they expanded the business to Townsville, North Qld opening a warehouse in Garbutt. Over the next couple of years The Shade Centre Townsville was able to service the shade needs of North Qld where the weather was often over 35 degrees.
In 2006, with the success of our Australia Wide Delivery Service, we closed our NQ Warehouse. With this success the Brendale warehouse was expanded with the installation of a mezzanine floor, increasing our storage space by 35%. By this time Tony had tired of the strenuous work involved in installations and moved to working in the office with the rest of the team.
By 2012 we had one of the largest ranges of shade products in Australia. Internet shopping was now starting to take off so our website got a fresh make-over with our new online store featuring most of our products for sale. Over the next few years we moved away from having so many items on display in store and filled our warehouse up with pallet racking so we could increase the stock levels of our better selling items. Weekend and Night Markets had become big businesses for customers with a lot of them needing a Gazebo and Accessories. Thanks to a lot of feedback from customers and a lot of our own research we had discovered Oztrail was now the most popular brand for market stall holders due to their affordability, reliability, range of options and spare parts, so we focused our gazebos sales solely on Oztrail brand.
By 2021 with 9 employees, we have become one of the largest retailers in Australia for Shade Products such as Oztrail Gazebos, Beachkit Beach Umbrellas and Shelta Umbrellas. We still have the largest range of Shadecloth with over 100 different colours from 30% to 99% Shade Protection along with many different building and horticultural fabrics. We now also stock a wide range of Stainless Steel Hardware and Shade Sail fittings at cheaper everyday low prices then those large hardware stores.
Our philosophy here at The Shade Centre is pretty simple, we treat our customers the way we want to be treated when buying goods. We want good service and to deal with people who know what they are talking about when it comes to the products they sell. We are honest with our customers by setting our selling price at the lowest possible price we can, right from the start. We are here to do our very best for our customers.
So, the next time you are thinking of buying some shade products perhaps you’ll think of us here at The Shade Centre, and remember how we have built our business from the backyard of a house in 1985 to become one of the leading shade companies in Australia, simply by putting our customers first.
1991 – The Shade Centre (Brisbane) opens at 132 Clifford St Stafford
2001 – The Shade Centre (Brisbane) opens at 5/9 Combarton St Brendale
2002 – The Shade Centre (Townsville) opens at 17 Hamill St Garbutt
